By David Hone, Climate Change Advisor for Shell (originally posted here on May 16, 2013)
The first full day of 400+
ppm CO2 as recorded at Mauna Loa in Hawaii last week produced an
outpouring of sentiment and grief from many, but the news has seemingly
passed. Unfortunately, the arrival of such a day had become inevitable.
Since the early days of the Keeling Curve at 315 ppm when it became
clearly apparent that anthropogenic CO2 emissions were accumulating in
the atmosphere, we have counting up the ppm to this day.
By Filippo Veglio, Director, Social Capital Focus Area, WBCSD
What
are the challenges faced and progress being made in measuring, managing, and
communicating the socio-economic impact of business? And what is the road ahead
for this practice?
These
questions were addressed on March
27 in Washington, DC at a half-day event co-hosted
by the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) and the Aspen Network of Development Entrepreneurs (ANDE).
ANDE and WBCSD brought together some 60
practitioners from the private, public, and non-governmental communities to
help clarify diverse perspectives on impact measurement, understand how
business can best contribute, and generate ideas on improving the practice.
By guest blogger Finley Merrill, Sustainability Anaylst, Alcoa (FLT '13)
This year's WBCSD Future Leaders Team kicked off its year-long program on March 4th in New York. With a focus on integrating
sustainability into finance, investment and reporting, the 29
participants will assess the business case for integrating sustainable
development into finance.
The five-day event included panelists from companies, NGOs and academia along with a visit to Wall Street and the Federal Reserve, and resulted in a week full of fruitful discussions around issues from the challenges and opportunities associated with integrating sustainability into finance, investments and reporting to natural capital valuation.
While you may remember talk of renewable energy and energy
independence during the 2012 Presidential debating season, you will not
remember hearing any of the Presidential or Vice Presidential candidates
discuss climate change. In fact, for the first time since Chicago
Tribune reporter Jon Margolis asked Vice Presidential candidates Lloyd
Bentsen and Dan Quayle about climate change and fossil fuels in 1988, climate change failed to receive any attention at any of the presidential debates.
Despite the lack of mention of climate change during debate season, the issue held a front-and-center position in President Obama’s inauguration speech
on January 21, 2013. “We will respond to the threat of climate change,
knowing that the failure to do so would betray our children and future
generations,” the President proclaimed.
And for good reason. According to economist Joseph Stiglitz,
climate change is the most important issue facing the U.S. economy
today: under a “business as usual” approach, climate change will likely
cost the U.S. economy $3.8 billion per year by 2020, $6.5 billion per
year by 2040 and $12.9 billion by 2080. The U.S. economy may be held
back by 2% of GDP over the next 20 years because of climate change (you
can read more statistics here).
The question now is: how will the U.S. respond to this imminent threat?
Most businesses depend on and impact water in some way. At
the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD), many of our
member companies across a wide variety of sectors are trying to solve the
problem of ever-diminishing water supply. Water is already limited in many
parts of the world and impacting business operations, while the demand for it is predicted to
increase globally by 55% by 2050, with especially dramatic demand in the
electricity production (140%) and the
manufacturing (400%) sectors[1]. While technical
innovation and watershed stewardship are part of the answer, our company
members believe that better valuing, and pricing, water is also a key part of
the solution.
The
Obama Administration recently announced new
fuel efficiency standards that would lead to an estimated 50 percent reduction of greenhouse gas emissions
from cars and light trucks by 2025.The new standard, issued by the US
Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Transportation, raises
the fuel economy to almost 55 miles per gallon. The Standard also includes
incentives fir commercializing advance technologies for developments in areas
such as electric and natural gas vehicles.
By: guest blogger Chris Turner, Director of WBCSD Rio+20
Can the U.S. prevent a slow-motion global crisis? And if we don't lead, who will?
It really was great to see Hilary make the trip to Rio. Whatever your politics, you have to applaud the effort that she has put into the job. Whether this was a trip to show respect for the Brazilians or to highlight the importance of sustainable development is irrelevant. The US government did not ignore Rio+20 - that is a win given the current environment. But, unfortunately, we also did not lead.
PepsiCo, Novozymes and Unilever joined me in celebrating World Environment Day on a panel discussion “The Private Sector’s Impact on Development Policies and Approaches: Climate Change, the Environment and the Increasing Role of the Private Sector”, at the Society for International Development’s Annual Meeting in DC. These WBCSD members shared case studies on how their companies are growing their business and profits through sustainable development. The audience, comprised mostly of development and humanitarian NGOs and US government agencies, was very interested in how companies make the business case to invest in sustainability projects and integrate sustainability into corporate strategy, without necessarily justifying these actions with short-term profit or market gains. The key message coming out of the discussion, that we need to take a longer view and to valuate non-financials more effectively on our economy, is nothing new but still needs to be hammered home until we figure out how to do it as a society.
Contributed byWilliam P. Chernicoff , Manager - Energy & Environmental Research at WBCSD member company Toyota
The WBCSD recently convened a conference with the Environmental Law Institute and the World Environment Center in DC to explore various technologies, frameworks and collaborations that are enabling cities to become more sustainable. The event looked to examine what will be needed, by whom, and the challenges to expand these technologies, policies, and partnerships across the U.S. and the world.
I have a confession to make. But I’ll get to that in a minute.
It’s Earth Day again where thousands of environmentalists are expected to march on the National Mall in DC to call for a change to business as usual. The theme this year is “Mobilize the Earth” to “secure Renewable Energy for All and a sustainable future for our planet”. One of the Earth Day Network’s goals is to get governments to take action in Rio on universal access to clean energy. To support this effort, they’ve launched a campaign called “A Billion Acts of Green,” where individuals can make public environmental commitments to demonstrate the power of individual action in changing the world.
