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4 steps to corporate leadership on climate change

环境可持续性通常意味着绿色操竞彩足球app怎么下载作和产品。但这还不足以阻止气候变化。

无论您是在谈论照明改造,零废物工厂还是拼车激励措施,大多数现代公司都有某种形式的环境计划。企业环保主义已经成为主流,而领先方式的人也不是“替代方案:”其中包括杜邦,IBM,沃尔玛和沃尔特·迪斯尼。许多程序正在推出,可节省资金。许多人吸引员工和客户。随着越来越多的公司努力减少能源利用和浪费,并将可持续性融入其战略规划中,不喜欢什么?竞彩足球app怎么下载

Simply put, these actions will not lead us to sustainability because they won’t meaningfully address climate change, our generation's most pressing environmental challenge. Without much more substantial action, global temperatures will likely increase 6 degrees Celsius by 2100, with what International Energy Agency officials call"devastating consequences for the planet."升高超过2摄氏度将导致作物衰竭和融化冰川,但国际能源局警告我们“到2度轨迹的门即将关闭。”

Close that door, and many businesses will suffer in myriad ways. Storm-lashed customers will have cash flow problems. Supply chains will be disrupted. There will be new conflicts over water, resources and human migration. The very physical integrity of factories and buildings will be threatened.

企业需要与政府互动

因此,尽管似乎“可持续业务”已经开花,但环境提醒我们,我们未能在足够的规模上解决关键的可持续性问题 - 气候变化。竞彩足球app怎么下载操作绿色计划是必要的,但几乎不足:它们无法解决问题的规模。由于气候变化需要一个只有政府才能提供的系统性解决方案,因此对可持续性的认真作用远远超出了绿化自己的运营。竞彩足球app怎么下载他们必须刺激政府行动。

Few firms are doing so, but nobody seems to have noticed. Most green scorecards, corporate strategies, media and shareholder analyses of business and the environment focus almost entirely on operational greening and policies. They ignore the need of companies to affect the broader debate on climate.

So what does meaningful corporate leadership on climate change look like? Recall that our largest environmental problems have never been solved by businesses volunteering to do the right thing. Government has always played a role, as when the U.S. Congress amended the Clean Air Act to address acid rain, and when governments around the world ratified the Montreal Protocol to stop ozone depletion. And since government responds to political will, companies must become activists. We advocate a four-step program for corporate leadership on climate change.

Four ways business can lead on climate

步骤1:游说。企业领导人应直接游说席卷和积极的立法,以对温室气体排放施加限制,例如碳费用和股息计划like that adopted byBritish Columbia

Such laws must be meaningful and national, not piecemeal and token. So while Canada deserves credit for implementing some climate policies in some provinces, those policies tend to be weak (like一种lberta’s carbon tax) and outweighed by opposing policies, such as the government’s push to develop and export carbon-intensive tar sands through theKeystone XL管道

的确,对于愿意促进气候政策的公司而言,加拿大是一个目标丰富的环境。一种气候动作网络调查reported that Canada has the worst climate change policy of all wealthy nations, and the fourth-worst among all nations, ranking 58th out of 61 countries (ahead of only Kazakhstan, Iran and Saudi Arabia). The Keystone pipeline would be an obvious target in Canada for corporate lobbying.

尽管加拿大没有强大的企业活动对企业的行动主义,但对合作行动感兴趣的企业现在可以加入新创建的企业Council for Clean Capitalism。Canadian companies can also join business coalitions in the United States, like创新气候和能源政策的业务(二头肌)和一种merican Sustainable Business Council

公司也可以采取单方面的行动,就像星巴克放置时一样全页广告在主要报纸上,以提高公众气候意识,同时游说美国政府有关threat climate change poses to coffee

Step 2: Align your trade groups. Because many industry associations have stymied climate policies, CEOs should insist that their trade groups stop opposing such policies and resign from groups that continue such opposition. Pacific Gas & Electric, Apple and Nike showed this sort of leadership when they公开辞去美国商会在反对调节温室气体排放的情况下。公司会begin getting called out for the inconsistencybetween adopting a beneficial climate change policy for their own operations while funding groups that undermine climate policy.

Step 3: Leverage your supply chain. Business leaders should require their suppliers to assess their climate impact and set public targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. More than 50 companies are doing just this with over 1,000 of their suppliers around the world via the碳披露项目的供应链计划。随着越来越多的买家向供应商施加压力以评估和减少碳的影响,供应商正在回应by sharing their greenhouse gas emissions and targets.

Managers selecting suppliers should heavily weight their support for climate policy. Promoting supply chain action builds climate awareness, and can be especially important in countries where companies can’t directly influence government policy. It is also an influence-multiplier, which can dramatically extend a company's reach.

戴尔(Dell)和沃尔玛(Walmart)正在有效地这样做。他们做得足够吗?否。根本没有足够的公司向足够的供应商施加压力,无法达到满足2摄氏度目标的必要规模。对气候政策的公开立场更为重要,因为这可能导致有约束力的政府政策,这些政策可以实现2度摄氏摄氏度。戴尔(Dell)和沃尔玛(Walmart)的努力在这方面的工作是有限或不存在的。

步骤4:营销您的努力。参与步骤1-3的公司应交流他们所做的事情,以帮助客户和供应商欣赏他们的领导,就像星巴克一样。这种营销是一种气候教育的一种形式,可能会激发其他企业加入他们采取这些步骤。

克服障碍

公司为什么不这样做?毕竟,即使是对气候科学的有限理解也揭示了气候变化带来的明显和现在的危险。原因之一是,反对气候行动的公司和利益集团的巨额资金已经fogged the glass, confusing people on the science, in the same way the tobacco industry confused people about the risks of smoking.

另一个原因是公司赚钱出售其产品和服务,并倾向于避免分心这一关键任务。气候被视为重要性,规模全球和未来风险。与影响当今底线的政策问题(如贸易政策或健康与安全法规)相比,这并不是很大的机会。

But climate must move to the top of the priority list. Companies with sustainability initiatives that remain silent on climate are dodging the critical environmental issue of our generation. Corporate environmental leadership today means engaging aggressively, even uncomfortably, to promote robust climate policy.

NBS Thought Leaders offer guidance on sustainable business models for the 21st century. Thought Leaders are leading academics and practitioners: world experts on sustainability issues. Here,迈克尔·塔夫尔(Michael Toffel)一种uden Schendler敦促公司通过政治行动以及运营改进来应对气候变化。Toffel是哈佛商学院的教授,Schendler是Aspen滑雪公司可持续发展副总裁。竞彩足球app怎么下载

图片来源:CC许可证themostinept/Flickr

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