Kılkış, Ş., Bjørn, A., Bai, X., Liu, J., Whiteman, G., Crona, B., Andersen, L. S., Hasan, S., Vijay, V., & Sabag, O. (2024). City–company collaboration towards aligned science-based target setting. Nature Sustainability.

This paper is the first to scientifically investigate and draw attention to the transformative potential of city-company collaboration, especially when co-located cities and companies adopt science-based targets. The potential for two-way proactive influencing between cities and companies is demonstrated by measuring GHG reductions across the top 200 cities and 500 companies. The study shows the impact of co-locating cities and companies with ambitious targets; if an ambitious company is based in an ambitious city, GHG reductions are significant. The impacts of adopting science-based climate targets are also assessed, showing that science-based targets lead to greater GHG reductions compared to plain targets. A similar approach was taken to see whether aligning co-located cities and companies could protect freshwater security if science-based targets are adopted. Fresh water security was chosen to demonstrate how impacts on ESBs can be positively impacted by city-company collaboration (fresh water being one of the ESBs). Analysis of the current state of city–company collaborations shows that there are many potential points of strategic collaboration that could accelerate the maintenance and sustenance of ESBs.Collaboration of cities and companies towards reducing the human impact on our environment will contribute towards keeping the earth safe and just for humanity.