The Brazilian branch of the UN Global Compact launched an IPO on April 26 on the Brazilian stock exchange (B3). The UN Global Compact has transformed Earth into Eart4 (Terra4 in Portugese), a global company with 8 billion clients who, in recent years, have been contributing to its increasingly poor performance. The planet became a publicly traded company with all the trimmings, even a ringing of the bell to open trading at B3, the Brazilian stock exchange, one of the largest of its kind in the world.
The initiative, by AlmapBBDO, translates environmental crisis into the language of the financial market to help create a sense of urgency and encourage investors to support policies that are pro-human rights, pro-labor, environmentally friendly and anticorruption. The campaign aims to encourage new signatories to the UN Global Compact.
It has also has swept across borders. A symbolic IPO will be held at UN headquarters in New York on May 11 and this will be attended by representatives of NGOs, the business community, key figures tied to ESG issues and influencers. The initiative will soon be rolled out in more countries, including Mexico, Finland, Norway, Italy, Colombia, Sri Lanka, United States, Nigeria and Indonesia.
Since its symbolic IPO, Eart4’s stock has fallen 3.4%, down to a current market value as of May 2 of US$18.26, from an original offering of $20.30. You can follow the stock at the company website, where people can watch the daily fluctuations in the shares’ symbolic value in real time. The variations are tied to monitoring of news sites across Brazil and the world.
Like any company that’s just gone through an IPO, Eart4 is looking for engaged investors. The aim is to encourage more companies to sign on to the Global Compact and commit to the UN’s 17 goals for its 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (which is why Eart4 started trading at $20.30). Eart4 already has 1,900 signatory companies in Brazil and 18,000 worldwide. Companies can register on the EART4 website or via the Global Compact.
The initiative was inspired by the publication of indicators by the Global Footprint Network and the WWF which sounded the alarm about global exhaustion. An estimated 1.7 Earths would be necessary to meet the needs of the total population. The last Earth Overshoot Day, the day on which humanity’s use of natural resources outstrips the planet’s ability to regenerate them, fell on July 28, 2022. In accordance with recent trends, it’s expected that the date will fall even earlier in 2023.
A few key data announced during the ceremony include the 540,000 viruses circulating in nature today that science has yet to study; that 12 million more people have fallen into extreme poverty in Latin America and the Caribbean; 2 billion don’t have access to potable water; 3 billion don’t have access to basic sanitation; 828 million go hungry every day; 2.4 billion women are deprived of the economic rights enjoyed by men; and over the course of their lives, one in three women – some 736 million – are subjected to physical or sexual violence by a partner or sexual violence by a non-partner.
About EART4: The Company
A longstanding firm, peerless in its sector, with 8 billion consumers, EART4 is currently seeing the worst results in its history. In this context, social inequality is translated into an unequal distribution of dividends, while deforestation, water pollution and a loss of biodiversity become “poor asset management”. The good news is that the company still has massive potential to turn things around, and that’s why everyone interested in the company’s survival should invest in it. When it comes to other companies, one of the ways they can do that is by committing to the UN Global Compact.
The initiative includes everything an honest-to-goodness company has, from an institutional website to an annual report. On the website, people can watch the symbolic value of the company’s stocks fluctuate in real time. The stock mechanism monitors multiple news sources in Brazil and abroad; and at each piece of news about climate change, inequality or other socio-environmental issues, the price varies. When news is negative, the price goes down. When the news is positive, it goes up. This is a didactic tool for showing just how much our actions affect the planet.
“As humans, we have a crucial role to play when it comes to our planet. The EART4 initiative is a way of communicating just how dire the situation is. We need to invest in Earth, and we need to invest now. The private sector has come to the understanding that engaging with this agenda is fundamental, but 2030 is right around the corner and meeting the SDGs is a priority and a responsibility for all stakeholders. That’s why this IPO for the Earth is hugely symbolic for the UN Global Compact and its partners on this journey. We can’t leave anyone behind,” stated Carlo Pereira, chuef executive officer of the UN Global Compact in Brazil.
“The B3 was the first stock exchange in the world to join the Global Compact, in 2005, and one of the pillars of our sustainability strategy is to encourage best ESG practices in the market. By hosting EART4’s ‘initial offering,’ the Brazilian stock exchange is reaffirming its commitment to the principles of the Global Compact and reinforcing the call for more and more companies to be a part of this push and invest in the future of our planet,” added Ana Buchaim, vice-president of people, marketing, communications, sustainability, and private social investment at B3.
AlmapBBDO’s full campaign includes a film, ads, external media and activation via digital influencers, providing a poignant reframing of a company that’s on the brink of bankruptcy, but has the potential to turn things around, with positive impacts in the medium and long term.
Marco “Pernil” Giannelli, chief creative officer at AlmapBBDO, commented, “The idea of doing an IPO for planet Earth is to bring a new urgency to the need to do something for the planet. We want to remind ‘investors’ that, if the company’s cash flow doesn’t improve, we’ll lose the resources that humanity needs. And having organizations commit to the Global Compact is the only way that we’ll able to improve the numbers for the place where we all live, day after day.”
Credits
Client: Global Compact Brazil Network
Client Team: Carlo Pereira, Otavio Toledo, Ana Urquiza & Nubia Mendes
Agency: AlmapBBDO
President & CEO: Filipe Bartholomeu
CCO: Luiz Sanches & Pernil
Executive Creative Directors: Fernando Duarte, Henrique Del Lama, Rafael Gil & Rodrigo Almeida
Creatives: Fábio Tedeschi, Flávio Cheren, Igor Pontes, and Mozar Gudin
Design: Micael Andrade
Special Projects: Diego Honorato, Julia Newman & Marilia Silva
Liaisons: Camila Massari, Daniela Teixeira, and Cairo Ribas
Content: Sidney Marcelino Leite Silva, Kizzy Bortolo, José Roberto Bezerra, Marcos de Souza, Diego Villas Boas & Juliana Brasileiro Henriques
Editor: Thiago Bueno
Motion: Arthur Siqueira, Bruno de Lacerda, Felipe Macedo & Sofia Selles
Sound Production: Raw Audio
Musical Production: Fernando Forni, Ricardo Pinda & Rogerinho Pereira
Musical Direction: Hilton Raw
Sound Design & Mix: Enrico Maccio& Philip Braunstein
Liaison: Carol Peternelli
Coordination: Robério Barbosa
Technology: Brenner Batista, Felipe Ferrarini, Gabriel Sávio & Tácio Brito
