Kimberly-Clark and General Motors are among the two dozen companies pushing for more visibility into the true cost of natural resources -- from water to forests to soil to minerals – that are vital to the creation of their goods and services. By acting collectively to bring additional leverage to individual actions, they hope to galvanize other companies to value nature in a similar way.
The effort, organized by the Corporate Eco Forum and The Nature Conservancy, was highlighted at the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development this week in Rio de Janeiro. The details of the companies' commitments are published in a report titled "The New Business Imperative: Valuing Natural Capital."
"The companies featured in our report are united in the view that immediate leadership to safeguard well-functioning ecosystems is a business imperative, not a matter of philanthropy," said M.R. Rangaswami, founder of the Corporate Eco Forum, during the press conference in Rio.
The joint publication issued by the Corporate Eco Forum and The Nature Conservancy echoes another report out this week from sustainability advocacy group Ceres. That analysis, "Clearing the Waters: A Review of Corporate Water Risk Disclosure in SEC Filings," found that 90 percent of the 82 public companies studied were concerned about physical water risks such as scarcity or flooding. That's up from 76 percent just two years ago.
Although the Ceres analysis is focused more on the need for businesses to mitigate risks, both reports come to the same conclusion: there should be a more explicit business case for corporate environmental philanthropy.
Next page: Nine ways to start repaying your natural debt
For the author: "If you think
For the author:
"If you think the global debt crisis is sobering, what would happen if businesses were asked to pay for the estimated $72 trillion in natural resources that the United Nations figures they use for free?"
Is this $72 trillion a year or total since the dawn of time?
Thanks!
Natalie
Seriously, do you really
Seriously, do you really think it is a good idea to place commercial value on natural systems, assign monetary credits to them, and then allow the same financial institutions that crashed the global economy (that we still haven't recovered from) to develop the economic transaction systems?
I will celebrate when society
I will celebrate when society values nature for what we can learn from it rather than what we extract. Biomimicry 3.8's Innovation for Conservation program "funds are generated from nature-inspired technologies, and used to protect and maintain the diversity of life on earth."
What value do we place on protecting biodiversity as a source of inspiration and model for the regenerative abundance we seek to emulate?
http://innovationforconservation.org/
I will celebrate when society
I will celebrate when society values nature for what we can learn from it rather than what we extract. Biomimicry 3.8's Innovation for Conservation program "funds are generated from nature-inspired technologies, and used to protect and maintain the diversity of life on earth... our idea bank!
http://innovationforconservation.org/
Hoy más que nunca las
Hoy más que nunca las empresas necesitan de encuestas remuneradas para tener información de sus consumidores, y saber que estrategias de mercadeo, producción, cambios en sus productos o servicios necesitan implementar.
Encuestas remuneradas, que esas empresas te paguen por hacerlo es real, ya que como te mencione anteriormente las empresas necesitan una retroalimentación con sus consumidores, quieren saber si sus productos tienen aceptación, si son bien recibidos, agradables, desagradables para el consumidor. http://encuestaspagadasporinternet.org/encuestas-remuneradas/