It appears business continues to take climate change more and more seriously. Bloomberg Business, a publication, has opened a fascinating site covering the problem. Simply by scrolling down the page, information ranging from real-time (estimated) to historical is presented to you, illustrating the problem. All you have to do is trust that a horde of scientists are measuring carbon levels in the atmosphere properly, and trust that experiments that show carbon dioxide and methane contribute to the heating of the atmosphere, repeatable for those who know science, to realize that there is a problem.
And, for business folks, this is important. Most business folks are narrow focus on the creation, marketing, and selling of products of various sorts. The product is typically, if not always, a tangible thing they can touch, smell, and see. This is in contrast to the by-products of the manufacture, which if not always invisible, can always be herded off and disposed of into the vastness of Nature.
Or so was the historical narrative; today, there is little vastness left as we continue to breed and improve medicine.
(Source: Wikipedia)
But this is not consonant with the historical narrative, so unless the business’ owners and manager have some serious moral/ethical chops (often seen from left-leaning business people), they tend to be ignorant, ignore, or even deny the damage done to Nature – and, distant in time, but certain to happen, to themselves and their successors. Progeny, if you like. But the social costs of externalities such as pollution go up as a function of population density of the affected area. At some point, these external costs outweigh the worth of the product; this represents a business failure, and hence the frantic denials by some entities such as the Western Energy Alliance.
In this vein, Sami Grover @ Treehugger.com reports that Unilever, the third largest consumer goods company in the world, is making significant positive moves in this arena:
Take Unilever, for instance, which has just pledged to achieve 100% renewable energy (not just electricity!) across all its operations by 2030 and become “carbon positive” by the same date—meaning the company is responsible for more emissions cuts/sequestration than it is emissions. Significantly, that pledge also includes nearer term goals like phasing out coal and buying all grid-sourced electricity from 100% renewable sources by 2020.
This level of commitment is significant on several levels. Firstly, Unilever is leveraging its own emissions cuts to demand more ambitious political action too. And rightly or wrongly, when corporations talk, governments tend to listen. (Unilever is by no means the only corporate giants demanding a strong Paris deal.) Secondly, the sheer size of Unilever (2013 revenue was €49.797 billion) means that any commitment to phase out coal and buy only renewable energy will send an important signal to utilities, to financial markets, and to regional governments too. If you want to do business with Unilever, you’d better be planning on creating a clean energy future. Lastly, Unilever is couching its efforts in terms of immediate and medium-term change—not some far off goal that can be easily discounted once the current crop of executives retire.
(h/t Michael Graham Richard @ Treehugger.com for the new Bloomberg site)
