Introduction

Background

The Detroit Climate Action Collaborative has teamed up with the University of Michigan’s Erb Institute for Sustainability in Business to create this toolbox for use by Detroit-area small businesses. 1 The collaborative recently prepared a Climate Action Plan for Detroit—a road map for combating climate change and adapting to its likely effects. The plan addresses several different Detroit stakeholder communities, including small businesses. Although it’s focused primarily on climate change, the plan is part of a larger sustainability initiative for Detroit. It sees Detroit as a global model of a vibrant urban center, where business and community thrive in environmental, economic and social health. This “triple bottom line” aspect of the plan is the essence of true sustainability. 2 The Plan’s Goals Environmental Economic Social Sustainable Bearable Equitable Viable

The plan lays out four broad climate change goals that apply to all businesses and institutions, large and small alike:

GHGs

Reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from transportation, energy sources and the built environment 10% from 2012 levels by 2022, 30% by 2032 and 80% by 2050.

B2B

Create resilient business and institutions and a green businessto-business (B2B) culture.

H2 O

Preserve and conserve water and water quality.

JOBS

Increase awareness of career options in fields that lead to reducing GHG emissions.

1 A small business is one that has annual revenues less than $1 billion and/or employs fewer than 500 people.

2 Throughout this toolbox, we think of “sustainability” initiatives as the broad group of efforts intended to achieve the triple bottom line. Addressing climate change is one part of work in sustainability.

Reaching these goals will take significant work. The plan itself lays out five challenges in meeting its vision for Detroit:

1. Funding the changes required 2. Ensuring participation 3. Aligning policy and legislation

4. Dealing with a legacy infrastructure 5. Facing a culture often resistant to change

Keep these challenges in mind—especially as they relate to your own business— as you read through this toolbox.

THIS TOOLBOX

This toolbox is designed to help Detroit-area small businesses meet the plan’s climate change goals. 3 This toolbox should help your business identify specific climate change risks and opportunities and then design and implement strategies to reduce your impacts and adapt to inevitable changes.

We’ll focus on two main topics:

1. Six good business reasons for investing in climate change work

2. A six-step approach that can help your business tackle this issue

Toward the end of the toolbox, you’ll find case studies that illustrate this information and a list of additional resources.

OTHER TOOLBOXES The Erb Institute has developed a suite of toolboxes that address additional corporate sustainability issues. Although most of these toolboxes were designed with large organizations in mind, you might be interested in learning about these: • Stakeholder Engagement: how to identify and engage important individuals, groups and others in your sustainability work

Materiality Assessment: a process to identify what matters most in company sustainability impact and to define a set of priorities for action

Strategy + Implementation: how to create a sustainability vision, supporting goals and tactics, and then put all of it to work

Global Supply Chain: the special sustainability challenges faced by companies that purchase from, and sell, around the globe

Metrics + Reporting: how to develop useful data to track and report on sustainability activities

Human Rights: a deeper dive into the unique challenges of this important area of corporate social responsibility

Please contact ErbInstitute@umich.edu if you would like to review one of these other toolboxes.