Environment

Hardly a day goes by without a global warming story on the ten o'clock news. Some graphically show sea levels rising as the ice caps melt. Others involve huskies at the North Pole with photogenic political leaders. All build up to a picture of climate change as a reality - when, not if. Good to see that companies are responding, from small scale schemes that make a modest difference to multi-million pound funds that catch the headlines.

However, it is relatively easy for many companies to reduce or offset totally the carbon emissions of their own operations. HSBC recently declared itself carbon neutral, through a combination of reduced energy consumption, switching to renewables and offsetting of the residual fossil-fuel based energy. The first year cost? Just $7m, or 0.03% of its annual profits ($21bn). Not a figure to break the bank. Or take individual consumers: fly from London to Wellington, New Zealand, and back, and thanks to British Airways you can offset your carbon emissions for just £32 - compared to a fare that can easily cost you 100 times that.

The moral of the story? For many individual companies, going carbon neutral is really not that difficult. Harder, but not impossible, is envisaging the sorts of steps a country like Britain can take to achieve Kyoto targets. But the really big question is how 2.4 billion Chinese and Indians can take even a few steps towards the lifestyles that Westerners take for granted without massive extra carbon emissions. Of course they can't, but nor can or will they stop economic growth. So the hard truth is that climate change is here, and here to stay.

For companies, that means the question to address now is not just amelioration strategies like carbon neutral, but more importantly adaptation: how will you trade profitably in a world where sea levels have risen by anywhere between 13 and 94 cm over the next century (UNEP)? For governments, that means less talk about reductions and more about coping in a world where climate change is an irreversible fact.
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editor@corporate-citzenship.co.uk

Related news

Every little helps
Tesco has set up a £100m fund to invest in sustainable environmental technology, it announced on April 25. The company is to install wind turbines in some of its new stores and will also make use of solar energy, geothermal power and trigeneration. It is drawing up plans to build a supermarket in Norfolk using only recyclable materials. The supermarket also aims to double the amount of material its customers bring to it for recycling. Currently this accounts for a third of all material recycled in the UK.
Environmental campaign group Friends of the Earth welcomed the move but said that the company needed to make fundamental changes to the way it did business in order to make a genuine contribution to tackling climate change. These include moving away from car-dependent stores; switching from a global supply chain; improving energy efficiency in all its stores; and cleaning up its supply chains. Contact Jenny Sacre, Tesco 01992 644 346 www.tesco.com

Risky climate
Many companies are still putting the interests of their business and of their shareholders at risk by failing to address climate change in their strategies, investor coalition Ceres has cautioned in a report published on March 21. The group rated 76 US companies and 24 non-US companies in ten industrial sectors against a 'Climate Governance checklist' to evaluate how they addressed climate change in five broad areas, including board oversight, public disclosure and strategic planning.
Top ranking companies BP, Dupont, Alcan and Cinergy are market leaders in addressing the financial risks and opportunities presented by climate change, says Ceres, while a growing number of businesses are starting to realise that limits on greenhouse gases are inevitable and they cannot afford to risk falling behind international competitors in developing climate-friendly technologies. Contact Peyton Fleming, Ceres 0 1 617 247 0700 www.ceres.org

Green lights
The government published on March 28 a programme to tackle climate change domestically and to secure agreement on action to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions. The measures to reduce emissions target cover every sector of the economy and include a stricter emissions cap for industry and a renewed emphasis on encouraging and enabling the general public, businesses and public authorities to help achieve the governments targets. The government plans to:
- increase the Climate Change Levy on companies in line with inflation with effect from 1 April 2007
- allocate an extra £5m funding to allow expansion of The Carbon Trust's scheme for small and medium businesses.
It will also work in partnership with major retailers and the Energy Saving Trust to introduce voluntary schemes in the retail sector to encourage the purchase of more
energy efficient consumer electronics. Better product design will be encouraged to tackle problems such as excessive energy use during standby mode. Contact Defra 08459 335 577www.defra.gov.uk

Green sky
BSkyB became the first media company to join The Climate Group on March 10. The company intends to become the world's first carbon neutral media company, which it aims to achieve by June this year, focusing on three key areas: efficiency, reduction and offsetting. In addition to its own operations, Sky hopes to inspire customers, employees and suppliers to become more energy efficient in their workplaces and homes. Contact Simon Jones, BSkyB 07967 678 320 www.sky.com

Trail erasers
The government has teamed up with sustainable tourism charity the Travel Foundation to launch a programme to offset the damage caused by tourists by promoting the use of low carbon technology in resort destinations. Tourists are being invited to contribute to the scheme, which will promote carbon reduction measures through interventions such as low energy lighting, low carbon transport and better insulation. Contact Stephanie Millar, Defra 020 7238 5690 www.defra.gov.uk