What’s On Our Radar: 07.31.26
Every other week, we share five links that made us think in our popular sustainable business briefing. Sign up here to get the next edition delivered straight to your inbox.
🥵 It’s So Hot That Japan Needs a New Word for It — The New York Times
I read this piece while riding out the mid-afternoon heat in our air-conditioned Tokyo hotel room last week and can confirm: Japan’s new official term for 104+ degree days — kokushobi, or "cruel heat day" — is spot on. The term was chosen by public vote after officials realized that numbers alone weren't adequately conveying the difference between “hot” and “the kind of heat that has real health impacts”. A fascinating look at the role of language in climate adaptation. (5 minutes, gift link)
🌡️ Lessons from Companies Learning to Beat the Heat — Financial Times
Mini fans, lemonade and ice cream on the factory floor sound trivial… until you see their role in bigger extreme heat strategies being rolled out by major companies across Europe. Schneider Electric pairs those small fixes with humidity-mapped sensors and mandatory hourly breaks, and Heineken is importing heat protocols from Mexico to its European sites. With extreme heat the new normal in a rapidly warming Europe, corporations previously focused on supply chain and satellite sites are now needing to implement protocols closer to home. (6 minutes)
📋 How to Write an Impact Report — Vogue Business
I appreciated this helpful rundown of best practices, opportunities and tensions in impact reporting in 2026. While the examples are fashion-specific, the underlying questions — what to disclose, how to approach emerging regulations, how to balance comprehensiveness with readability — apply well beyond the industry. (9 minutes)
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📉 CSO headcount at US companies falls for first time in 15 years — Trellis
Read on its own, this headline seems like yet another piece of bad news for the sustainability profession. But a closer look at the Weinreb Group report underpinning it shows some interesting nuance. Like the fact that sustainability budgets have largely held flat or increased, team sizes have held steady and 42% of CSOs say their responsibilities have actually broadened. The profession is in flux, no doubt about it, but the reality is more complex than a single data point. (4 minutes)
📊 GlobeScan-BSR State of Sustainable Business 2026 Report
A lot has changed since BSR and Globescan last published this report in 2019. A few of the findings I found most compelling: teams are more embedded in strategy, yet further from the CEO's office than they've been in a decade. Regulation, not customer demand, is now the top driver of action on sustainability. And over 60% say they're doing more than they're talking about publicly, further confirmation that greenhushing has overtaken greenwashing as the sustainability communications norm. (7 minutes)