Business, a vital part of the solution
Welcome to Business for the Environment’s brand new blog. Over the coming months, the B4E team and our partners will be bringing you the latest comment and opinion on the build up to the 4th B4E Global Summit, the world’s largest international conference for business-driven action taking place in South Korea on 21-23 April 2010.
It was only a couple of months ago that COP15 was billed by UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown as the last chance for world leaders to agree a binding climate agreement to replace the Kyoto Protocol http://en.cop15.dk/news/view+news?newsid=2379 but since then expectations have been lowered by the realization that the US Senate will not pass climate legislation before COP15, meaning US negotiators won’t be able to sign up to any successor to the Kyoto Protocol.
Though President Obama remains optimistic that a framework agreement can be reached http://en.cop15.dk/news/view+news?newsid=2554, without the US on board, China and India will be unwilling to commit either. And if they don’t sign up, any new treaty will be meaningless.
It’s not all doom and gloom: South Korea recently announced that it would cut greenhouse gas emissions by 30 percent by 2020 http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601101&sid=aTCt6NfyRFDo while President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil recently said his country would try to cut its greenhouse gas emissions by 38%-42% by 2020.
But despite these admirable goals, nothing less than a legally binding global agreement will suffice if the world is to keep within a maximum global average temperature increase of two degrees Centigrade.
For the business community, the ongoing procrastination by major world leaders over a new climate treaty is intensely frustrating. Companies need certainty to operate efficiently — without clear policy direction from governments and legislators it’s more risky for them to invest time and money in low-carbon technology. They don’t know where to target their resources, can’t prepare for future regulation and find it harder to attract investment from investors unwilling to commit in such an uncertain environment.
However, though the lack of action from governments has made tackling climate change more difficult, the business community has for a number of years been leading the way in driving forward a green agenda.
Early on in the climate debate, a number of forward-thinking CEOs realized that whatever the detail of future climate agreements and regulations, society was heading towards a carbon-constrained world — and there were two ways to approach it: ignore the issue and continue with business as usual until forced to change by legislation; or to adopt the more proactive strategy of comprehensively overhauling existing systems by integrating sustainability within all future operations.
Where these so-called “early adopters” have led others have followed, often with impressive results, as highlighted in the recent series, The Road to Copenhagen: Seal the Deal, which was broadcast on CNBC in October and November this year. http://www.sealthedeal2009.org/psa-tv-series.
As a result of these “low-carbon pioneers”, entire sectors are now driving forward the green agenda across multiple companies in all parts of the world — often voluntarily. The building, communication and technology sectors are just a few that have committed to improving their environmental performance.
While governments are slow to respond , CEOs are taking decisive, innovative and often groundbreaking decisions to position their companies at the forefront of change. However, there is still a long way to go before the business community can claim the moral high ground.
To the general public, it can sometimes look like business is not doing enough to quickly enough to respond to the threat of climate change. In some cases, they have a point. But it’s easy to forget that it was just 10 years ago that the word “sustainability” would have drawn a blank from most CEOs while the concept of environmental management was really only understood by specialist “boffins” measuring air quality, emissions and energy use.
These days phrases such as “triple bottom line”, “carbon footprint” and “energy efficiency” can be heard in boardrooms across the world; from CEOs concerned about the impacts of poor environmental stewardship on share price to the financial directors keen to improve the bottom line by reducing energy use. The change in mindset has been dramatic.
Of course, there are companies and sectors that have been slow to adapt. Some are not sure what to do, confused by the sometimes contradictory messages about climate change; others are ignoring the issue, perhaps hoping that a “silver bullet” technology will be developed that will solve climate change at a stroke thereby negating the need for change. These attitudes are looking increasingly out of step with the scientific and society’s thinking on the issue.
If, as expected, no binding climate deal is done in Copenhagen, much of the focus will shift from governments to business — at least until COP16, or the recently proposed COP15.5. B4E’s conference in South Korea will be the first chance for business leaders, NGOs, policymakers and other stakeholders to discuss what happens next and plan the next phase of the transition to a low-carbon economy as swiftly as possible.
Follow the developments here on the B4E blog and on Twitter.
Business has been partly responsible for climate change. Now, it’s demonstrating that it is a vital part of the solution.
Flemmich Webb