Businesses Call for International Climate Action

Some of the world's largest businesses are calling for an international framework of standards to address climate change.

Despite the recession, many of these companies are also continuing their voluntary commitments to increase energy efficiency and reduce greenhouse gas emissions, feeling pressure to do so from both consumers and the inevitability of climate legislation.

Those are some of the findings of the The Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP), an organization that catalogs the climate change information of nearly 2000 companies, and AEA, an energy and climate change consultancy. Their new report, Climate Change in the Time of Global Recession, makes suggestions about how government and business can cooperate to address climate change while stimulating the green economy.

Paul Dickinson, CEO of CDP, explains why the business community is asking governments to coordinate efforts at the international climate talks in Copenhagen in December:

"The new framework must create markets that can link together and recognize the global nature of business.

"Business operations don’t stop at national boundaries, and internationally coordinated policy drivers are essential. Business is calling for these policies now, irrespective of the current economic challenges we are facing."

Among the almost 60 companies in the report are Alcoa, Chevron, Dell, Duke Energy, DuPont, Exelon, Ford, Kimberly-Clark, Molson-Coors, Newmont Mining, Panasonic, Sara Lee and more. Many are members of US Climate Action Partnership (USCAP), a centrist collaboration of energy companies, industry and environmental groups that wrote the framework for the major climate bill now in Congress.

A number of the companies have also been targets of more progressive environmental groups for activities seen as contributing to climate change. Greenpeace has had a long standing campaign against Kimberly-Clark's clear-cutting of virgin forests in North America for facial tissues and toilet paper. Duke Energy has been accused of double-talk when it comes to climate policy.

According to the report, most of the companies that are already implementing carbon emissions reductions policies see the recession having little effect on those policies, particularly when they save money and reduce costs.

Another driving factor is their public commitments to reduce their carbon impact. However, when major capital investments are required to meet their promises, some companies say they may hold off until an economic recovery, particularly in industries like construction, food and beverages. 

Two-thirds of the American companies did not expect the economy to delay their climate change mitigation activities, while about half of UK and Japanese companies felt that way. That may reflect the current political environment in the U.S., with some kind of climate policy possible this year in the form of the American Clean Energy and Security Act (ACES).

In that vein, the report found that the inevitability of climate policy can drive action, even before that policy becomes law:

The biggest factor in reaping benefits from a low-carbon economy is seen as being well positioned before the change and therefore having a competitive advantage when a low-carbon economy begins to be fully realized.

Another strong incentive appears to be concern over consumer backlash and public opinion if companies don’t continue  their commitments to carbon emissions reductions:

Overall, the view is that most companies will not reduce their spending in this area on the grounds that they have no choice but to try to hit carbon emission reduction targets, whether mandatory or voluntary.

Nearly all the companies are looking for government incentives to further lower their carbon footprint in the form of grants and tax breaks for low-carbon technologies. As Dickinson explained,