© 2009 Flickr/Hossam el-Hamalawy CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 2.0
Maybe it can. This week, a group of the world’s 285 largest investors urged governments to take immediate action on climate change. Convened by Ceres (a nonprofit that brings together investors and the environmental community to focus on sustainability solutions), this highly influential group of companies has a combined net worth of over $20 trillion. The companies demanded that well-designed and effective climate policies be implemented at once at the domestic and international level, and underscored that delays will cost the global economy dearly. In their collective statement , groups as diverse as teachers’ pension funds, healthcare providers, church boards, banks, hedge funds, insurance groups and family foundations emphasized that climate and clean energy policies will “yield substantial economic benefits, including creating new jobs and businesses, stimulating technological innovation, and providing a robust foundation for economic recovery and sustainable, long-term economic growth.”
Should the climate change movement take these unlikely allies seriously? In the past, we’ve seen some good examples of businesses being proactive in the fight against climate change and the push for clean energy solutions. Sure, capitalism is not motivated by altruism, but by the opposite — self-interest. In fact, that’s exactly why they get it. Businesses understand risks, and they do the cost-benefit calculus better than most of us. Guess what that tells them? That the time for action on climate change is now.
This is an exciting moment in the world’s history, when people are fed up and taking to the streets to demand accountability. If climate-conscious corporations deliver on their promises, and the “Occupiers” force governments to sit up and pay attention, maybe that’s the one-two punch the climate change movement has been waiting for. What do you think? We’d love to hear your comments about the role of big corporations in the fight against climate change.
thomas Kritzer
October 25th
The solution to our problems both occupy and climate change will require a non-profit motive on the part of these businesses. are they ready for that? Are we ready for a non-disposable society? Are we ready to trade our suburbia for tight communities? Are we ready to regress into our inner cities and build our housing four stories and tight as we can get them so that we can heat efficiently with steam, To trade our lawns for parks and squares, our cars for trains? Are we ready to trade convenience of instant online buying and mega stores for the job creating power of the little middle man? I sure hope so.
andreas buechel
October 30th
i imagine a virtual meeting ground, a virtual playground where one can adjust the dryness or the juicyness of one s favourite simulation … either with excel like spreadsheets or in full high depht graphical game style simulations …
a space where ideas how a future economy what furthers ecologic balance and social fairness could look like… what rules applied result in which results