Video Blog: Signposts to Sustainability

This is a montage of extracts from interviews conducted by Dr Wayne Visser, Senior Associate, Cambridge Programme for Sustainability Leadership, for the Cambridge Top 50 Sustainability Books Project. Included are short clips by Polly Courtice, Muhammad Yunus, Joseph Stiglitz, Jeffrey Sachs, George Monbiot, Elizabeth Economy and Hunter Lovins.



The Top 50 Sustainability Books is now available from CPSL, Greenleaf Publishing and online bookstores. For more information about the Cambridge Programme for Sustainability Leadership or the Cambridge Top 50 Sustainability Books Project, see www.cpsl.cam.ac.uk or email info@cpsl.cam.ac.uk.

The Low Carbon Revolution: It’s Closer Than You Think

A few days ago, the UK government announced its Low Carbon Transition Plan, which will revolutionize the British economy. A few weeks ago, the Corporate Leaders Group on Climate Change launched its Copenhagen Communique, calling for a bold global policy deal. Less than a month ago, the US house of representatives voted to bind the world's largest economy to cutting carbon emissions by 17% from 2005 levels in 2020 and 83% in 2050. The revolution is here! Let's look at these harbingers of change in a bit more detail.

The implications of the UK's plan, announced by Ed Miliband on 15 July, are that Britain will cut its greenhouse gas emissions to 34% below 1990 levels by 2020. Among other things, this means that the UK will move from 5.5% renewable energy today to 30% in 2020, with an additional 10% coming from nuclear and clean coal. That's 600% growth in just 11 years, creating 400,000 new green jobs.

The Copenhagen Communique was launched on 29 June by the Prince of Wale's Corporate Leaders Group on Climate Change, which is convened by the University of Cambridge Programme for Sustainability Leadership (www.cpsl.cam.ac.uk) . The Communique, expected to be signed by 500 of the world's largest companies across all G20 countries, calls for "an ambitious, robust and equitable global deal on climate change that responds credibly to the scale and urgency of the crises facing the world today", including "a reduction of 50-85% by 2050" of greenhouse gases.

In addition to establishing a cap and trade system that is the heart of the 1,200-page US climate bill, the measures approved by the house would require power companies to produce 15% of their electricity from wind and solar energy. This starts to turn Obama's campaign rhetoric - to reduce climate-altering carbon dioxide emissions by 80% by 2050, and invest $150 billion in new energy-saving technologies - into action.

All this is happening before the crucial Copenhagen multi-lateral talks in December. The message is clear: progressive business and governments have seen the writing on the wall, and are not waiting for the bureacrats to catch up. Nobody should be holding their breath. The low-carbon revolution is well underway. The only question now is who will be the winners and losers. Smart governments and companies are betting on first-mover advantage.

CSR/sustainability experts on hope and 2009 prospects

Last night I was at the Science Museum in London attending the 20th Anniversary alumni celebrations of the University of Cambridge Programme for Industry (CPI - where I am a Senior Associate and was formerly Research Director).

The evening included an introductory speech by Director, Polly Courtice. Then we showed a little film (on a BIG Imax screen). The film included extracts from interviews I conducted with Joseph Stiglitz, George Monbiot, Hunter Lovins, Elizabeth Economy, Mohammad Yunus and Jeffrey Sachs. These interviews are the basis of two books that I am writing, which will be published in 2009.

Following the film was a panel discussion comprising John Elkington (Founder, SustainAbility and Volans Ventures), Emma Howard-Boyd (Director, Juipiter Asset Management), Doug Parr (Chief Scientist, Greenpeace UK) and Jonathon Porritt (Founder, Forum for the Future). They were asked to speak about what made them hopeful about the future.

John was placing his bets on social entrepreneurs, Emma commented on substantial growth in SRI in the past year (suggesting that it may be up to 20% of all investments by 2015 if memory serves), Doug cited victories in stalling a new UK nuclear plant and airport runway and Jonathon was putting his faith in a grassroots upswell (and his hopes for Barack Obama).

I would be lying if I said it was an entirely upbeat discussion. John sees the next 7 or 8 years of recession being very bleak and creating serious (and painful) discontinuities, Doug despairs over multilateral policy processes like Poznan and Jonathon thinks the scope for business to make serious progress in the current policy climate is extremely limited.

What all seemed to agree, however, is that 2009 will be an extremely challenging and exciting year for all of us working in CSR and sustainability. Their unified plea was for us to focus on the strategic, systemic reforms, rather than fiddling around the edges with incremental change. And speaking of strategic initiatives, if you haven't yet seen the Posnan Communique, signed by 140 global businesses, check it out at:

http://www.cpi.cam.ac.uk/programmes/energy_and_climate_change/corporate_leaders_group_on_cli.aspx