Deb Gallagher was looking to achieve greater impact in the "final act" of her career, after spending the past two decades in academic roles specializing in sustainability. In August 2021, she joined global nonprofit Business for Social Responsibility (BSR) as a consultant. Less than a year later, she was hired as a director of climate.
At BSR, Gallagher works with some of the world’s biggest brands and civil society organizations to integrate climate justice into private sector ESG commitments. These organizations work collectively to support communities on the frontline of climate change impacts.
Here she explains the critical need — from both an ethical and a business perspective — for more companies to act on climate justice, what that looks like on the ground and what skills are needed to get into the field.
Shannon Houde: The move from academia into an NGO consultancy role is a bold one. What drove you to make such a change? And how did you go about it?
Deb Gallagher: At my stage of career, the important thing for me was to create a final act that was important and had an impact, and that was at a place where I could share more broadly what I've learned and taught people over the years. I also wanted to find a culture that would celebrate what I brought to the table.
I had done a lot of community-based research in the equity space in my job at Duke University, but I didn’t exactly know how to communicate that to BSR and make it clear that I actually had experience that was valuable in this space. How do you describe a 40-year career that has spanned business, government and 20 years in academia in such a way that makes that experience real, applicable and also cutting-edge? That’s what they were looking for. So learning to translate my skills and experience was super helpful.
Houde: Having secured the role, what does it involve on a day-to-day basis?
Gallagher: There are a number of climate directors at BSR and each one of us has a particular practice. Mine is climate justice and I’ve worked primarily on two areas. One is focused purely on climate justice with leading companies, and that’s been really interesting. These companies are making climate commitments and achieving them, but they want to extend their practice to include providing justice for communities at the frontline of climate change, which requires different skills and a different commitment.
We’re working on a framework to ensure they disclose their climate transition plans, and that they incorporate climate justice, public policy engagement and considerations of nature.
And then there's work I've just launched which is a cross-sector collaboration with businesses in a variety of sectors, government, policy makers and community organizations that is making the connection between climate change and health. At the core of this work is an acknowledgment that health care and environmental justice have been a problem for communities at the frontline. So again, focusing on those communities that don’t necessarily have resources or a voice.
The other work, which is ongoing, focuses on the crazy political fight in the U.S. for the soul of ESG. There are regulations coming down the line, and some in place already, that require companies to disclose what they're doing, if they’ve set, say, net zero targets. We’re working on a framework to ensure they disclose their climate transition plans, and that they incorporate climate justice, public policy engagement and considerations of nature, to make these more than a typical disclosure. It’s a tool that all businesses can use to share with their stakeholders, primarily financial stakeholders, how they’re making their actions on climate transformative in their business strategy.
Houde: How would you define climate justice?
Gallagher: Climate justice is about supporting communities at the frontline of climate change that are suffering from the impacts, but don't have the resources to build resilience. Companies that are working on reducing their greenhouse gas emissions and looking to achieve net zero will — if they're engaged in climate justice — focus part of their actions on building resilient communities along their value chains.
It’s a big part of a business strategy. It's the right thing to do, so it has a moral or ethical component, but i
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