Business Assurance Thought of the Day - Guardian Climate Change Summit Notes
16th June 2009 by Alex Briggs1 Comment
We attended the Guardian Climate Change Summit 2009 in London yesterday as an official media partner. Here is a collection of notes and thoughts from the day, most of which were posted yesterday on our www.twitter.com/lrqa page.
First session thoughts and notes
Quote from Gavin Neath, Senior VP Unilever “Organisations need to learn humility.For the past 30 years, environmental groups were right, businesses were wrong.”
Mars looking to work with PAS 2050 the carbon Footprinting for products, according to Fiona Dawson, Managing Director, Mars, UK
Fiona Dawson, MD Mars, UK FDF committed to reducing carbon across supply chain
Unilever highlights palm oil and tea as key parts of their ethical supply chain efforts
Kudos to Mars and Unilever for being in the panel with the knowledge that the audience would not all be friendly.
Second session thoughts and notes
Peter Ainsworth, Conservative MP for East Surrey, “The UK should be the Saudi Arabia of the Marine Energy world.”
Rift between developing nations and developed nations is biggest threat to climate change talks in Copenhagen, IPPR
UNFCCC Executive Secretary, Yvo de Boer, “Failure in Copenhagen talks would be criminal.”
Morning part of conference over, Mars and Unilever highlights of morning’s conference
Mid day session (government policy) thoughts and notes
Simon Hughes, Lib Dem shadow second for energy and climate change, “investment in nuclear is clearly taking away from investment in renewable energy
Developed nations have outsourced their manufacturing while increasing their rate of consuming. Now they are demanding that developing countries use less carbon while meeting the consumer demands of the developed nations.
Carbon Capture and Storage CCS key to future, Dr Paul Goldby Chief Exec E.ON UK
Martin Wright, editor, Green Futures, “South Korea currently investing 12 times more than the UK in climate change initiatives.”
First afternoon session (case studies) thoughts and notes
In answer to question “how can business prove their commitment to climate change, BT’s Donna Young said, “ISO 14001 EMS, we work with LRQA.”
BT working with WRI to develop standard that suppliers will be measured against.about 20 hours ago from web
BT’s Donna Young focussing on climate change and the overall board’s attitude towards it and its effect on brand strategy.
Kellogg’s case study all about non factory employee engagement.
Changing consumer behaviour key to reducing our carbon emissions, Edward Butt, VP Sustainability, Reckitt Benckisern
10 steps to Good Carbon Management includes Reporting, communications and engagement as well as Independent Assurance.
Second afternoon session (Supply Chains) thoughts and notes
Afternoon was topic breakouts with Frances Way of CDP leading the Supply Chain discussion
Stephen Reeson, Energy Manager of the Food and Drink Federation, led a discussion on PAS 2050, the management system scheme for Carbon Footprinting of Products and Services.
Reeson mentioned that France is likely to implement mandatory carbon footprinting of food products as early as 2011.
Donna Young’s presentation on getting it right with both internal and external stakeholders was highlight of afternoon session.
18th June 2009 at 1:43 pm
Today has seen the launch of UK Climate Projections 2009.
UKCP09 is cutting edge science developed and undertaken by the
Met Office. It is the first time that a probabilistic approach has been used for climate projections, allowing us to take a risk-based approach to planning for the future.
We will need to adapt to the inevitable warming we will see in
the future such as hotter, drier summers, warmer wetter winters and increased frequency of severe weather events such as heatwaves, droughts
and floods.
These Met Office climate projections are a useful planning
resource when interpreted carefully. Our climate science consultants can walk businesses though how to best use and apply these climate projections. Find our more here http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climatechange/guide/ukcp/