The Editor’s Post: A new era for relations between business and Indigenous communities?

Anna Patton 6th December 2024

Will “ESGI” be the acronym of 2025? And will the UK government modify employer tax changes announced in its recent budget? This week’s view from the Pioneers Post newsroom.

Will “ESGI” be the acronym of 2025? A term that’s becoming commonly used in Canada, it recognises that Indigenous rights span all aspects of responsible business. Our ‘Earth Fixers’ series feature this week takes us from the steppes of Mongolia to the Pacific Islands and beyond to explore what might be a new era for positive relationships between big business and Indigenous communities around the world.

One of the trailblazers is outdoor clothing maker Patagonia. The company’s announcement in 2022 that it was shaking up its ownership, making Planet Earth its only shareholder, sent ripples of appreciation around the world. One lesser-known decision it made around that time was to give $20m to start a brand new nonprofit. Home Planet Fund officially launched this year, and it claims to be pursuing “philanthropy unusual” inspired by Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard’s insistence on doing “business unusual”.

Read more: Patagonia hailed ‘inspirational’ as founder pledges $3bn company to planet Earth

What does that look like? It’s certainly not the only funder to emphasise trust in its relationships with grantees, but it does pride itself on going where others do not. Executive director Dilafruz Khonikboyeva told us that she insisted that the fund, which supports Indigenous and local communities, focus on three things: underfunded people, underfunded geographies and underfunded interventions. In practice, this means supporting regenerative farming in Tajikistan, pastoralists in east Africa and a women’s alliance in the Pacific islands, among others.

Everywhere, it’s about the interconnection of people and nature – and it really is a people issue as much as an environmental one. Indigenous people make up 19% of the world’s extreme poor; Indigenous Australians’ life expectancy is up to 20 years lower than that of other Australians. And half of the 200 environmental defenders killed in 2023 were Indigenous people or afrodescendants.

Through Home Planet Fund, Patagonia is helping Indigenous and local communities to continue doing what they do, but businesses can back Indigenous groups in other ways too: by bringing the highest possible standards to their supply chains, helping to fund the livelihoods of producers, or choosing to buy services from businesses that are Indigenous-led or that specifically train and hire people from those backgrounds. Our feature highlights some of these approaches in action.

In 2025, the voices of Indigenous communities are likely to get louder. Some are calling next year’s climate talks in Brazil the “Indigenous peoples” COP: Brazil is home to 1.7m Indigenous people, many of whom live in the Amazon, the world’s largest tropical rainforest which is facing multiple threats to its survival. The activists disappointed by the recent COP29 in Azerbaijan are already urging more meaningful inclusion at COP30.

Igniting impact in Amman

This Sunday, I’ll be in Amman, Jordan, where I’ll be moderating a panel discussion on the green and circular economy at Ignite, a conference hosted by the NGO Spark that will focus on the theme “investing for the future”. Stay tuned for more (and drop me a line if you happen to be in Jordan or with any top tips for me!).