OSC2, a northern California and national community of sustainably focused natural products industry CEO’s and business leaders, has announced that 18 of its member companies will participate in today’s LEAD on Climate Day to call on a bipartisan group of federal lawmakers to build back a better economy by infusing resilient, long-term climate solutions into future economic recovery plans. With participants from over 200 major companies across a variety of business sectors, today’s Lawmaker Education and Advocacy Day (LEAD) is the largest ever virtual call to action from the business community on the ongoing climate crisis and the largest coordinated effort on the issue since the COVID-19 pandemic swept across the U.S.

The 18 participating OSC2-member companies—All Good, AlterEco, Annmarie Skin Care, Dr. Bronner’s, Gaia, Grove Collaborative, Guayaki, Happy Family Organics, Imlakesh, KuliKuli, Lotus Foods, Miyoko's Creamery, Nana Joes Granola, Numi Organic Tea, Nutiva, Sambazon, The Town Kitchen and Uncommon Cacao—represent an industry approaching $250 billion in sales.

“By joining our voices as one, we are able to harness the true power, passion and commitment of our industry to ensure that the next round of post-COVID crisis economic stimulus packages focus on generating clean energy solutions, infrastructure and jobs,” said Lara Dickinson, executive director and co-Founder of OSC2. “This is an opportunity to build our country back better, with better ways of doing business, ensuring supply chain stability, and protecting the planet and its people.”

Building off last year’s LEAD on Carbon Pricing in-person event, which brought together 75 companies, this year’s virtual meetings feature three times as many companies and have greatly expanded the scope for strong and urgent climate action from Congress. Companies will urge House and Senate lawmakers on both sides of the aisle to weigh in as Congress considers how future rounds of economic recovery spending should be allocated. OSC2 participating companies will stress:

“OSC2’s mission is to address the toughest sustainability problems facing our industry and our planet and we have a long track record of making change —  from Dr. Bronner’s commitment to renewable energy and Numi’s plastic reduction initiatives to AlterEco’s efforts to alleviate deforestation,” continued Dickinson. “We look forward to calling on our representatives to follow our lead and help make the change that the world needs now more than ever.”

This increased corporate policy engagement comes at a time when the consequences of the climate crisis have never been clearer or more dire. Last year, carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere were at their highest levels in at least the last 800,000 years, and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) recently found that the last decade was the hottest on record.

That is why, even amid the current pandemic, OSC2 members are leading emissions reductions initiatives across their own business operations and are calling on Congress to address climate action as part of the economic recovery process.

Source: OSC2