Safe climate, sound business: An action agenda

Action underway by partners

SCSB partners are already taking steps to focus on the issue of climate change because it is important not only that we understand the issues but also that we understand and control our own emissions.

We have made a joint commitment to follow our own recommendations and to work together toward the adoption of the recommendations for governments.

• British Petroleum. The SCSB initiative builds on BP’s climate change commitments.
• General Motors. General Motors understands that economic, environmental, and social objectives must be integrated into daily business decisions and future planning activities.
• Monsanto. As a life sciences company with expertise in agricultural systems, Monsanto businesses depend on healthy ecological systems.
• World Resources Institute. For 15 years, WRI has been working on climate change and promoting economically sound solutions to the world’s policymakers through our research and institute-wide actions.

About the collaboration

British Petroleum, General Motors, Monsanto, and the World Resources Institute take climate change seriously and have worked together to build a vision of the future that leads to both economic and environmental security for society.

We undertook this project because we are already engaged in dialogue on sustainable development, and we agreed that our discussions should extend to climate change.

We believe that finding common ground and understanding differences among business, government, and environmental interests are critical to ensure both a safe climate and a sound business outcome.

We have explored a variety of aspects to help us understand the nature of the challenge and possible policy responses.

We looked at scenarios to meet future world energy demand that show increasing and stabilizing greenhouse gas concentrations, we explored new technologies and potential business opportunities, and we discussed government policies and how they could encourage businesses and consumers to respond. Furthermore, we identified actions that each of us could take to make progress.

We believe it is important to maintain a robust economy in order to realize the aspirations of business, labor, and citizens throughout the world. Although addressing climate change will be a challenge, we believe that there should be no inherent conflicts between economic development and a healthy environment.

This notion is the crux of sustainable development and premise of our Safe Climate, Sound Business collaboration.

Our discussions led us to three principal conclusions:

• Climate change is a cause for concern, and precautionary action is justified now.
• Business can contribute to climate protection efforts in substantial, positive ways by helping to develop sound climate policies, by providing the research and technologies needed to address the challenge, and by taking actions to reduce and offset their own emissions.
• Flexible and market-oriented climate policies that implement national commitments can address the long-term need to stabilize the concentration of greenhouse gases. Such policies can facilitate a Safe Climate, Sound Business outcome by stimulating innovation, early action, and cost-effective reductions. These policies can also produce multiple co-benefits and reduce the risk of climate change caused by human activities