September 24, 2009
Authors
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Ryan Schuchard
Former Associate Director, Climate Change, BSR
This week in Hong Kong, ASrIA held a press conference that covered two arenas of business climate action that, disappointingly, have yet to mix.
The first was Carbon Disclosure Project’s 2009 Asia report, which announced that the number of companies reporting on emissions has doubled from the previous year, up to 127. This study, much like Newsweek’s inaugural Green Rankings, emphasizes the micro-accounting of entities, and exudes optimism.
The second was the announcement of the Copenhagen Communiqué, a movement to re-gear the economic systems within which companies work. This signatory policy call—much like the Business for Innovative Climate and Energy Policy, the U.S. Climate Action Partnership, and the World Wildlife Fund’s Open Letter to the U.S. Senate, and Ethos’ similar letter to Brazil—emphasizes that in the big picture, greenhouse gas and clean energy trends are unlikely to change without legislation making the former more expensive and the latter less so. In this macro context, managing emissions has little overall effect if the regulatory systems are defunct.
Will these two arenas ever mix, with climate accounting incorporating performance against the big picture?
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