Corporate carbon policies and practices are destined to be a major theme for the rest of this year -- and likely well beyond that. Next week, September 21, has been dubbed Global Climate Week, corresponding to the annual opening of the United Nations General Assembly in New York. There is a sizeable list of activities planned, both within and around the U.N. (such as the 2nd U.N. Private Sector Forum: Climate Change on September 22) as well as many others surrounding and coinciding with the Kleig lights of attention that will be focused there.
One of those will be the release of the annual survey of corporate climate strategy and risk management by the Global 500 and S&P 500 companies, produced by PricewaterhouseCoopers for the Carbon Disclosure Project. Backed by 475 institutional investors with assets of more than $55 trillion, CDP's climate change questionnaire was sent to 3,700 of the world's biggest companies. The results of that survey will be officially released on September 21, but each day this week, GreenBiz.com will offer a sneak-peek at the results. You can read the first installment here.
As Paul Dickinson, CDP's CEO, writes: "Corporate carbon reduction targets are now a 'need-to-do,' not a 'nice to have'." As a result, he says, "more firms are setting reduction targets than ever seen before" -- up 32 percent in just one year -- and that "These reduction targets are becoming more aggressive."
That's encouraging, albeit not surprising, given the impending regulatory schemes on carbon being debated in the world's capitals. In the run-up to this December's COP-15 meetings in Copenhagen -- the successor to a similar COP meeting that yielded the Kyoto Protocols in 1997 -- the topic of corporate carbon assessment, risk, and mitigation will rise up many companies' agendas.
Getting Ready for the Sustainability Index: The response to our recently announced September 24 webinar on the Walmart Sustainability Index has been extraordinary, and is likely to sell out, so you are encouraged to sign up quickly. The 90-minute event features a discussion that I'll moderate with Walmart sustainability executive Rand Waddoups along with Time Mohin of the environmental consultancy EORM and Christopher Carr of the law firm Morrison & Foerster. This is a rare opportunity to hear from -- and ask questions of -- all three on the implications to your company of "complying" with this emerging supply-chain metric. To sign up, click here.