Three months after assuming the G20’s 2024 presidency, Brazil has begun setting out its ambitious sustainable development vision ahead of the year-end Leaders’ Summit. In late March, the Lula administration presented its headline policy proposals at a high-level meeting with G20 delegations, most notably including the launch of a Global Alliance Against Hunger and Poverty to tackle the worldwide crises hindering the U.N.’s SDG 2030 agenda.
In delivering on the Alliance’s mission and cementing its status as the Global South’s economic champion, the Brazilian Government will need to supplement the mobilisation of multilateral financial resources with strong private sector support to deploy innovative educational interventions in the world’s most deprived communities.
Given significant public budgetary shortfalls, multinational companies operating in an increasingly ESG-driven business climate have emerged as vital education and skills providers, harnessing their substantial financial firepower, physical presence and cutting-edge technical expertise to create jobs and train local communities in innovative practices required for Brasilia’s desired “just and inclusive transition towards a sustainable future.”
Planting the seeds for sustainable food
Reflecting a global trend accelerated by the Covid-19 pandemic, climate change and the war in Ukraine, hunger in Brazil has soared in recent years, placing agriculture at the heart of its G20 sustainable growth plans. According to Inter-American Development Bank President Ilan Goldfajn, “Brazil can become a leader in the carbon economy, in food exports, with the potential to feed up to 1 billion people,” with its strong governance and vision helping to attract foreign investment into the transformation of its massive agriculture sector.
In Brazil’s ecologically-crucial Cerrado region, where irresponsible farming practices are driving rising deforestation rates, Nestlé Nespresso has partnered with locally-based startup reNature to embed and expand regenerative agriculture within local communities, building on the foundation laid by the former’s decades-long collaboration with Brazilian coffee farmers – notably including its participation in the climate resilience-focused Cerrado Waters Consortium. Nespresso and reNature have jointly developed a ‘model Regenerative Agriculture farm’ at Guima Café, a predominantly women-run coffee farm that has placed environmental and socioeconomic responsibility at its core.
As part of efforts to empower farmers at Guima and across the region to adopt soil health and biodiversity restoration methods while generating profitable yields for local communities, Nespresso and reNature run capacity-building workshops on crucial sustainable methods, from planting trees and drought-resistant varieties to composting and integrating cover crops. Beyond the technical side, Nespresso is using its economic weight and global influence to help fund the scale-up of the Guima model, including investing its own resources and convening a coalition of international investors to accelerate the regenerative agriculture transition.
Unearthing clean energy essentials
With Lula’s government aiming to position Brazil as a green economy powerhouse, the administration will need to balance its policy agenda with the sustainable extraction of the critical minerals set to fuel this transition. While Brasilia rightly intends to relegate “predatory” mining approaches to the past, a new generation of responsible, innovative mining companies represent crucial allies in transcending the growth-ecology dilemma.
In the State of Goiás, Chinese multinational CMOC uses its niobium and phosphates mining operations in Catalão and Ouvidor as local anchors of sustainable growth. Beyond producing the building blocks of Brazil’s envisioned green economic revolution – niobium, for example, is a crucial component in cutting-edge solutions ranging from low-carbon steel to the next-generation batteries and magnetic nanocrystallines required for the efficient storage, conversion and delivery of clean energy – CMOC reinvests this value in its surrounding communities to spur long-term development.
Education has remained a top priority for the firm’s social interventions, notably including the launch of CMOC’s “SENAI” initiative, in partnership with a local vocational school, to offer skills training for young people and facilitate their labour market entry, with over 50 students completing professional training courses in industrial maintenance and mining chemistry in 2022. As part of a multi-million dollar annual investment programme in education, CMOC Brazil collaborates with a range of universities and professional institutions to fund and deploy its Young Apprentice and Interns schemes, paving the way for a rising generation of highly-skilled, high-value workers equipped to lead socially and environmentally-progressive mining efforts.
Fueling a future of green skies
As with Brazil’s agriculture and mining sectors, aviation represents a hugely promising industry that requires significant innovation to mitigate its environmental impact. A traditionally hard-to-abate sector, insufficiently-ambitious interventions will see aviation’s relatively small 2% share of global carbon emissions soar over the coming years, as the market’s growth continues and ‘easily’-electrifiable sectors decarbonise.
Over four decades into its collaboration with the Brazilian aviation industry, Airbus is deepening its presence, as underscored by its participation in French President Emmanuel Macron’s business investor delegation for the late-March state visit. Keen to help unlock Brazil’s potential to emerge as a global leader in sustainable aviation fuel (SAF), Airbus has partnered with Siemens Energy and Brazilian industrial innovation research organisation EMBRAPII for the H2Fly project, which is using green hydrogen to develop an innovative, zero-emission fuel alternative to high-emitting kerosene, with the goal to test this technology on small aircraft in Brazil.
In keeping with its emphasis on continuing education, Airbus’s social responsibility programme has focused heavily on opening pathways for Brazilian youth to join this nascent transition. Along with its local subsidiary Helibras, the Airbus Foundation – the company’s philanthropic wing – created the Flying Challenge initiative to inspire at-risk students to continue their educational journeys and pursue meaningful careers in aviation via engaging competitions, workshops and flight experiences. What’s more, Airbus’s funding for a range of university aeronautical trainee programmes, design challenges and individual student sponsorships is boosting the sector’s accessibility while preparing the ground for the next phase of sustainable aviation innovation.
With Lula’s Brazil capitalising on its G20 Presidency to get the SDG agenda back on track and rally lagging financial support for the Global South, his administration’s policy vision stands to gain enormously from stronger private sector cooperation. Moving forward, leading firms in strategic industries look set to continue mobilising their size and advanced innovation capacities to train local communities in the high-value, low-carbon practices at the core green economic transformation.