Posted: Wednesday, January 30, 2008, 4:36PM
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KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT TAGS
"Corporate Social Responsibility"
How climate change is rewriting the rules of business
Concern over the environment is having a dramatic effect on business, according to a report by the Worldwatch Institute. It says a more sustainable global economy is beginning to emerge as companies pour money into renewable energy projects and carbon trading schemes.In its State of the World 2008 report, the independent US-based research organisation says £26bn was invested in renewable energy in 2006, a 33 per cent rise on 2005.
Carbon trading in 2006 was also running at nearly triple the level seen in 2005. Project co-directors Gary Gardner and Thomas Prugh said: “Once regarded as irrelevant to economic activity, environmental problems are drastically rewriting the rules.
“We have the tools today to steer the global economy onto a sustainable path. The task is to bring them together and scale them up so that they become the norm across today’s economies.”
The report says that to avoid economic collapse at the global level, governments must steer investment away from “destructive” activities such as the extraction of fossil fuels and direct it instead towards a new generation of environmentally sustainable industries.
The report says there are 575 environmental and energy hedge funds. “Clean tech” has rapidly grown to be the third largest recipient of venture capital while 54 banks, representing 85 per cent of global private project finance capacity, have endorsed a new international standard of sustainability investment.
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