DDBA 8522 Week 11 Net-Zero Position Paper Example

A 2050 Pledge Counts Only When Someone Can Fail It Sooner: A Position Paper Arguing That a Cement Producer's Net-Zero Commitment Needs Interim Targets, a Named Bearer and a Test Before It Means Anything

Student Name

Walden University

DDBA 8522: Seminar in Sustainability

Instructor Name

Month Day, Year

A 2050 Pledge Counts Only When Someone Can Fail It Sooner: A Position Paper Arguing That a Cement Producer's Net-Zero Commitment Needs Interim Targets, a Named Bearer and a Test Before It Means Anything

The Commitment

A composite cement producer with five plants in the central United States, producing about 9 million metric tons of cement a year, announced in 2023 that it would reach "net-zero carbon dioxide emissions across our operations by 2050." Cement production emits carbon dioxide from burning fuel in kilns and, unavoidably, from the chemical reaction that turns limestone into clinker, which accounts for roughly 60 percent of a cement plant's emissions. The company's announcement named three pathways: blending less clinker into cement, switching kiln fuels and capturing carbon at its plants. It set no date before 2050.

The Question

The seminar has asked, all term, who carries a long-dated commitment, over what horizon and how anyone will know it has failed. This paper argues that the cement producer's pledge, as stated, answers none of those questions, and that it counts as a commitment only once it carries interim targets, a named bearer and a test that could show failure before 2050.

Why the Pledge as Stated Is Not Yet a Commitment

A target 27 years away, with no milestones, constrains nothing the company does now. Every executive who approved it will have retired before 2050. Any plant investment made between now and 2040 can be described as consistent with the pledge, because the pledge says nothing about the path. Rogelj et al. (2021) argued that net-zero targets are often vague in exactly these ways, and proposed that they specify scope, the role of offsets and a fair path with interim milestones. Bansal and DesJardine (2014) argued that sustainability concerns the tradeoffs between present and future, and a pledge that defers all action to an unspecified future avoids the tradeoff rather than making it.

Condition One: Interim Targets

The pledge needs dated milestones that require action now. For this producer, plausible milestones would be a 25 percent cut in emissions per ton of cement by 2030, from blending and fuel switching, and a decision on carbon capture at its largest plant by 2032, since capture takes years to permit and build. The 2030 target is reachable with known methods; the capture decision forces the company to confront the hardest part of the problem while current leaders are still accountable.

Condition Two: A Named Bearer

The pledge needs someone inside the company who answers for it. At present, responsibility sits with a sustainability team without authority over capital spending. The bearer should be the executive who controls plant investment, with the milestones in that executive's performance objectives. Slawinski and Bansal (2015) found that firms differ in how they handle tensions between short- and long-term goals, and that those which build long-term goals into routines and decisions handle them better than those which leave them to separate functions. Placing the pledge with the person who allocates capital builds it into the decisions that matter.

Condition Three: A Test

The pledge needs a test that could show failure before 2050. A suitable test would be published annual emissions per ton of cement, verified by a third party, compared against a straight-line path to the interim target. If emissions per ton in 2028 sit above that path, the pledge is failing, and the company should say so and explain what it will change.

What the Company Already Knows

The company is not starting from nothing. Its 2023 sustainability report shows that clinker made up about 88 percent of its cement on average, while some competitors' blended products use 70 percent or less. Two of its five plants already burn some alternative fuels. And it has commissioned a feasibility study for carbon capture at its largest plant. Each of these facts makes interim targets more realistic, not less: the company has the information to set a 2030 target it can meet.

The Rival View

The strongest objection is that rigid interim targets could force premature investment in technologies, such as carbon capture, that will be cheaper and better later. A company might reasonably wait. That has some force for capture, which is why the condition here is a decision by 2032 rather than a completed plant. But it does not apply to blending and fuel switching, which are available now. Waiting on those is not prudence; it is delay.

Conclusion

A long-dated pledge counts as a commitment when it can be failed by people who are still in their jobs. With interim targets, a named bearer and an annual test, the cement producer's pledge would become one.

References

Bansal, P., & DesJardine, M. R. (2014). Business sustainability: It is about time. Strategic Organization, 12(1), 70-78. https://doi.org/10.1177/1476127013520265

Rogelj, J., Geden, O., Cowie, A., & Reisinger, A. (2021). Net-zero emissions targets are vague: Three ways to fix. Nature, 591(7850), 365-368. https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-021-00662-3

Slawinski, N., & Bansal, P. (2015). Short on time: Intertemporal tensions in business sustainability. Organization Science, 26(2), 531-549. https://doi.org/10.1287/orsc.2014.0960