The Paris Agreement on Climate Is Adopted

Authors

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  Aron Cramer

  President and CEO, BSR

  

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  Aron Cramer

  President and CEO, BSR

  

  San Francisco

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  Aron is recognized globally as a preeminent authority on just and sustainable business. In addition to leading BSR, which has grown substantially throughout his tenure as President and CEO, Aron advises senior executives at BSR’s 300+ member companies and other global businesses and partners on the full spectrum of environmental, social, and governance issues.

  Aron joined BSR in 1995 as the founding director of its Business and Human Rights program. He later opened BSR's Paris office in 2002, where he worked until becoming President and CEO in 2004. Aron has served on advisory boards to CEOs at AXA, Barrick Gold, Marks & Spencer, Nike, Recruit Holdings, SAP, Shell, and he serves as a director of the We Mean Business Coalition and RISE.

  Aron speaks frequently at leading business and public fora and is widely quoted in top-tier media, such as the Financial Times, Le Figaro (France), The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Axios, and Politico. He is co-author of the book Sustainable Excellence: The Future of Business in a Fast-Changing World, which spotlights innovative sustainability strategies that enable business success.

  Prior to joining BSR, Aron practiced law in San Francisco and worked as a journalist at ABC News in New York. He holds a BA from Tufts University and a JD from the University of California, Berkeley.

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BSR enthusiastically welcomes today’s historic climate agreement adopted in Paris. For the first time, 196 countries have committed to building a thriving, clean economy through a combination of national climate action plans, the commitment to progressively raise ambition over time, the mobilization of climate finance, and a commitment to build the resilience of vulnerable populations all over the word.

BSR is proud to be a cofounder of the We Mean Business coalition, which brings together seven business-facing networks and the thousands of companies we collectively work with. Over the past two years, we have worked to catalyze business leadership on climate change through a variety of climate commitments on issues including renewable energy, short-lived climate pollutants, ending deforestation, and carbon pricing. In addition, we have worked to cultivate the business voice on climate policy to ensure that the policy-enabling environment crafted in Paris reflects the essential elements business needs for greater leadership on climate.

Working with our partners, we actively participated at COP21 and are delighted to announce a successful outcome that promises to hold global mean temperature rises below 2°C and create the building blocks for a just and sustainable world.

We will continue to work closely with our more than 250 member companies to turn the vision of the agreement into reality, through one-on-one consulting, collaborative initiatives, and research. Business innovation is a crucial way to help achieve the progress envisioned in the agreement, and we are committed to working with our member companies and key stakeholders to capture the massive business opportunity presented by the outcome in Paris.

BSR is also a signatory of the Paris Pledge for Action. The pledge is supported by the COP21 French Presidency and brings together a multitude of voices on an unprecedented scale within a single, collective statement promising to quickly and effectively help implement the universal climate change agreement and accelerate the transformative changes needed to meet the climate change challenge.

For more information, read the We Mean Business press release “Business Leaders: Paris Agreement Will Accelerate Shift to Thriving, Clean Global Economy.”