Nature provides the resources and stability businesses rely on to grow. ICC works with companies of all sizes to advance practical, business-led solutions for a more sustainable future, shaping outcomes in international and intergovernmental decision-making.
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Nature keep business running by providing clean water, fertile soil, raw materials, pollination and climate-regulating systems that all underpin production.
It also buffers economies against shocks. Healthy ecosystems lessen the impact of floods, droughts and disease outbreaks, helping to stabilise operating conditions and support long-term investment.
And the economic upside is significant. Protecting and restoring nature could unlock around US$10 trillion in new business value and generate up to 395 million jobs by 2030.
Yet, when these systems decline – through biodiversity loss, soil erosion, water pollution or ocean acidification – the economic and social consequences are instant. Supply chains weaken, costs rise, jobs disappear, livelihoods are threatened and, in some cases, entire industries may collapse.
ICC is the official voice of business at the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP) and under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). We are also a trusted business voice in environmental processes under the auspices of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). Through these engagements, we bring forward the technical expertise, insights and innovative solutions of businesses for a sustainable, resilient and green future.
Our aim is to support environmental sustainability and our shared responsibility to conserve natural resources and protect global ecosystems – ensuring that action on climate and nature is not only ambitious, but also grounded in real-world experience and commercial practicality.
ICC Environment and Energy Commission
Raelene Martin, Head –Sustainability
Daniel Grajales, Policy Manager – Environment
Solange Harpham, Policy Manager – Sustainability
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Plastic pollution is a global challenge that, by its very nature, requires coordinated international action. The future global plastics treaty – an international agreement being negotiated by United Nations member states – must be workable, effective and inclusive, and set the frameworks and policies needed to accelerate innovation and business action across sectors and geographies.
A fully circular approach must sit at the heart of this treaty, ensuring products are designed for circularity and are circulated in practice – facilitating improved collection, reuse, recycling and environmentally sound waste management. Efforts to address plastic pollution, must prioritise solutions to plastic products with a high risk of environmental leakage – in other words those plastics most at risk of escaping into nature due to poor waste management – and guided by an evidence-based, application-specific assessment framework that reflects differing national contexts.
Innovation will be essential to drive rapid system change. The treaty must support new technologies and scalable solutions across the entire plastics value chain – from how plastics are designed and produced, to how they are collected, reused and recycled. Effective implementation mechanisms to help companies comply, innovate and transition are also essential to enable real-economy action, particularly for micro-, small- and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs).
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Global trade is central to the world economy but it also carries significant environmental and social impacts. With trade flows linked to as much as 30% of global greenhouse emissions, it is clear that global trade has a critical role in addressing the climate crisis. While trade supports growth and connectivity, its long-term viability depends on aligning with environmental and socio-economic goals.
Yet today, efforts to address sustainability of trade are hampered by complexity, fragmentation and a lack of common definitions for assessing sustainability across borders. This makes it difficult for banks, corporates and investors to evaluate transactions and channel finance towards activities that support the Paris Agreement goals.
To address this, ICC and leading trade banks have developed the Principles for Sustainable Trade and Trade Finance: a clear, practical and globally applicable framework to assess sustainability across the entire trade journey. The principles consider both environmental and socio-economic dimensions, providing transparent guidance to help financial institutions and companies to steer capital towards sustainable and inclusive trade.
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The ocean is fundamental to both natural and human systems, yet its capacity to support economies, communities and future generations is under increasing strain. Protecting and restoring oceans demands urgent, coordinated action from businesses and policymakers alike. A science-based approach is essential to safeguard marine ecosystems and ensure the sustainable use of ocean resources.
Business has a critical role to play in driving this transition. Companies should integrate ocean priorities into their climate and nature strategies, reduce environmental impacts and can actively support ocean health by advancing marine science and investing in innovative, sustainable ocean-based solutions.
At the same time, policymakers must enact robust, science-based policies that support sustainable business practices and foster cross-sector collaboration –recognising the deep interdependence between land and ocean systems for building resilience to global challenges.
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Raw materials and critical minerals are essential to the digital and energy transition, as well as for the industrialisation of developing economies. They have rapidly become a central theme in geopolitical debates and multilateral diplomacy, largely viewed through the lens of supply security and supply chain resilience.
Yet despite their importance, business and policymakers still lack a clear, shared understanding of how materials move through the global economy – from extraction and processing to trade, use, reuse and disposal – and of the environmental and social impacts associated with these flows.
To address this gap, ICC and its partners are exploring the development of a Global Materials Data Hub. This shared infrastructure is designed to consolidate existing open-access data on global material flows and their impacts. In doing so, this hub provides businesses and decision makers with a credible, accessible knowledge base to support decision-making, targeted investment and coordinated action across global material value chains.
Biodiversity is essential to support productivity, stability and long-term economic resilience. Yet, data shows biodiversity loss is accelerating at an unprecedented pace, posing material risks for companies that are facing rising costs due to disasters and supply-chain disruptions. Biodiversity conservation, on the other hand, could unlock US$ 10 trillion in business opportunities and create 395 million jobs by 2030.
ICC has long championed business engagement in biodiversity policymaking. We play a central role in mobilising the private sector in discussions under the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), particularly on conservation, sustainable use, and access and benefit-sharing of genetic resources. We also help companies understand, manage and communicate their biodiversity-related dependencies and impacts.
To ensure policies are realistic, ambitious and aligned with economic realities, businesses must be actively engaged in the development and implementation of national biodiversity strategies. ICC is committed to supporting both business and governments in translating the Kunming–Montréal Global Biodiversity Framework into practical action – enabling companies to manage biodiversity risks, seize emerging opportunities and play a leading role in in integrating respect for nature’s vital role into the economy.
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As momentum builds for collective climate and environmental action, understanding how companies can collaborate responsibly for sustainability purposes is moving to the centre of policy debates. This guide provides direction for businesses seeking to align sustainability cooperation with competition compliance.
To meet global climate goals, business ambition must be matched by credible frameworks for action. This ICC-commissioned Oxera report sets out 14 recommendations to strengthen the integrity and effectiveness of voluntary carbon markets and mobilise private finance for climate action. When grounded in transparency, integrity and strong standards, voluntary carbon markets can enable businesses to invest credibly and confidently in a net-zero future.
Small and medium-sized enterprises are vital to global climate action, yet access to green finance remains a major barrier to scaling their impact. This ICC–Sage report shows how digital and AI tools can help bridge this gap by simplifying reporting and boosting access to funding. It calls for five urgent actions – from streamlining reporting standards to expanding sustainability-linked finance – to accelerate SME climate action and make COP30 a turning point for green finance.
As the frequency and severity of climate-related events escalate, there is a growing consensus that mitigation alone is insufficient. Adaptation must play a central role in securing resilience. To support this shift, the new ICC-commissioned Oxera report assesses how the private sector’s role in climate adaptation can be strengthened and scaled. The report is intended to inform ICC’s advocacy as the official UNFCCC Focal Point for Business and Industry in the lead-up to COP30 in Belém.
The ICC Principles for Sustainable Trade and Trade Finance offer a framework to assess the sustainability of trade and trade finance. The Principles mitigate risks of greenwashing and social-washing by providing clear, transparent and consistent guidelines along with standardised definitions. They are designed to support business in meeting both the UN Sustainable Development Goals and the Paris Agreement objective of limiting global warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels – enable banks, corporates and investors to effectively channel capital towards sustainable and inclusive trade finance
Targeted clarifications and reforms to the Basel Framework could unlock significant volumes of private investment in high-impact, climate-aligned projects in emerging markets and developing economies, while ensuring the continued soundness of the global financial system.
The science is clear. The 2023 synthesis report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) provided a critical pulse check indicating that current country nationally determined contributions (NDCs) remain highly insufficient to meet the Paris Agreement goals to limit global warming to 1.5 °C. In order to meet the collective goal of net zero emissions by 2050, greater action is needed globally to advance on the path set before us.
The International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) has called on governments to secure an ambitious, workable, effective and inclusive agreement at the last negotiating round of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC-5) in Busan – one that rallies all actors of society, including the business community, in the collective charge to end plastic pollution and that sets the frame and direction for accelerated business action.
A new ICC report unveils how monopoly power can be used to accelerate climate action and tackle unsustainable practices. The report follows an analysis in 2023 which showed that competition authorities are increasingly offering business guidance on sustainability co-operation agreements. While much has been accomplished since, more remains to be done to transform competition policy from a barrier into an enabler of a sustainable economy.
ICC, in collaboration with Sage, has launched a global report which reveals a $789 billion green finance opportunity for small businesses. The report exposes a gap between SMEs’ sustainability ambition and their ability to take action, preventing them from accessing vital green finance needed to drive their initiatives. To address these obstacles, the report concludes with recommendations to enhance sustainability reporting and improve access to sustainable finance.
Since 2021, ICC has drawn on the experience of its global members to develop core principles and guidance for the effective design of carbon pricing instruments. In this third report, building on our past work, ICC provides guidance to governments and policymakers to address carbon leakage, promote linkage for greater international cooperation and make carbon pricing systems more efficient.
The stakes are once again high at the UN climate change conference COP29 happening in a year of record-breaking temperatures. Our eyes set on this year’s renewed focus on financing climate action, the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) highlights key elements for establishing an ambitious, actionable and comprehensive New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG) on climate finance.
A new report, commissioned by the International Chamber of Commerce, estimates that climate-related extreme weather events have cost the global economy more than $2 trillion over the past decade.
Reliance on the “Brussels effect” to tackle carbon leakage risks undermining the global climate action agenda, according to the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC). The global business organisation has called on governments to establish a new multilateral process to agree on global norms for the design, implementation and coordination of border carbon adjustments – reflecting growing concern within the business community about the potential adverse impacts of a proliferation of unilateral trade measures to tackle carbon leakage.
The International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) has launched a new set of Principles for Sustainable Trade Finance (PSTF) at Sibos 2024 in Beijing. Developed in collaboration with industry experts, financial institutions, corporates and Boston Consulting Group (BCG), the PSTF aim to provide a consensus set of principles that define sustainable trade finance products.
Meralco’s Long-term Sustainability Strategy charts a just and affordable path to a coal-free future by 2050. Through major investments in renewables, next-generation technologies and 30 key sustainability initiatives through 2030, Meralco is cutting emissions, strengthening communities, and expanding access to essential services. The strategy shows that sustainability and business prosperity can – and must – advance together.
ICC announced today the formal ratification of the Principles for Social Trade Finance (PSoTF) and the Principles for Sustainability-Linked Supply Chain Finance (PSL-SCF), following a public consultation launched at the United Nation’s 4th Financing for Development Conference in Seville in July. Together with the existing Principles for Green Trade Finance (PGTF), these newly ratified standards […]
Brazil’s clean power system gives it a unique edge in decarbonising transport. CPFL Energia is harnessing that advantage by electrifying its fleet, cutting emissions and operating costs while improving air quality in some of the country’s most polluted regions. Through long-term investment and innovation, the company is showing how energy providers can drive a cleaner, more competitive future for mobility.
Robynne Anderson, President of Emerging Ag, shares the stories of three women agripreneurs driving climate action across Africa. In Mali, Herou Alliance led by Rokiatou Traoré is restoring land; in Zimbabwe, Sesame for Life by Josephine Takundwa is turning drought into a business opportunity; and in Kenya, Savanna Circuit, co-founded by Emmastella Gakuo is cutting food waste. Their work shows how empowering women-led agribusinesses can deliver practical climate solutions, strengthen communities and build more resilient food systems for the future.
Feeding a world of eight billion people while restoring ecosystems demands bold, coordinated innovation. Across Africa and beyond, OCP Group is driving this transformation from the ground up – empowering farmers with tailored soil nutrient solutions that boost yields and cut emissions. With a US $13 billion green industrial strategy and powered by renewable energy, OCP is making remarkable strides towards a climate-positive future. From full renewable energy reliance by 2027 and net-zero emissions by 2040, OCP is setting the pace for sustainable growth across the global agri-food sector.
On behalf of business and industry, ICC’s statement to the closing plenary of COP30 recognises a strong signal of collective support for the Paris Agreement but stresses the need for bold and urgent action, grounded in solutions that truly work for people, the economy and the planet.
Tackling climate change not only requires innovation and investment but also competition frameworks that are fit for the green transition. The ICC Call to Action on Antitrust for Climate Action urges policymakers to align antitrust policy with sustainability goals to unlock responsible cooperation and accelerate real-economy impact.
ICC has issued a powerful statement as the official focal point for business and industry (BINGO) at COP30. Delivered by ICC Deputy Secretary General Andrew Wilson, the statement calls on ministers to seize the moment and forge an outcome capable of driving real-economy transformation by accelerating implementation, strengthening global alignment with the 1.5°C goal, and unlocking climate finance at scale — especially for emerging and developing economies.
As biodiversity loss accelerates, Suzano is proving that conservation and commerce can grow together. Through the creation of vast ecological corridors across Brazil’s Amazon, Cerrado and Atlantic Forest, the company is restoring ecosystems while strengthening business resilience. André Becher, Sustainability Manager at Suzano, explains how linking fragmented landscapes is unlocking shared value for ecosystems, communities and business alike.
Biosolutions – microbes and enzymes or other biological molecules – are tiny but mighty agents of change. From improving crop resilience and reducing chemical use to producing cleaner fuels and cold-water laundry detergents, biosolutions help businesses and consumers cut waste, save energy and lower costs. Already used across more than 30 industries and with a projected value of nearly US$ 930 billion by 2035, biosolutions are in full swing to ring in a new type of climate solution.
As the world’s second-largest rice exporter, Thailand faces a critical test: how to feed more people with fewer emissions while helping farmers adapt to climate change. A landmark public-private partnership with CropLife International is turning this challenge into an opportunity. By scaling climate-smart farming and through blended-financing models, its showing that profitability, resilience and climate action can grow together.
As the official Focal Point for Business to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, ICC delivered the Business and Industry NGOs (BINGOs) Statement at the opening plenary of the 30th United Nations Climate Change conference (COP30).
Bayer’s PRO Carbono programme helps Latin American farmers transition to regenerative, low-carbon agriculture. The programme combines robust science, data-driven tools and technical expertise to increase agricultural productivity, while enhancing soil carbon sequestration and reducing emissions, Marina Menin, Bayer’s Head of Carbon Venture in Latin America, explains.
Aviation is essential to Latin America and the Caribbean, connecting vast distances and driving tourism, trade and development. Through Airport Carbon Accreditation – the only global carbon management standard for airports – the region is making strong progress towards decarbonisation. Over 100 airports across 16 countries are now accredited, Rafael Echevarne Director General of Airports Council International in Latin America and the Caribbean explains. This reflects a growing commitment to sustainability and shows that aviation can align with climate goals.
Sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) offers the fastest route to decarbonising flight, cutting lifecycle emissions by up to 80%. Yet scaling production requires more than fuel innovation alone. As Founder and CEO of World Energy Gene Gebolys explains, new market tools such as SAF certificates and Book and Claim systems are reshaping how companies invest in cleaner flight – mobilising capital, bridging supply and demand, and accelerating aviation’s transition towards a net zero future.
