Business Assurance Thought of the Day, July 28, 2009 Climate Change
28th July 2009 by Alex Briggs
We have grown to expect environmental groups to remind us of the imminent threat that climate change poses. We expect scientists to continiously bring out new “evidence” that climate change is changing our world forever.
We are also quite sceptical when confronted with environmental claims from large organisations, assuming they are either greenwash or for PR.
That makes the following statement from Gavin Neath, Senior VP for Unilever all the more suprising and important:
I do think when business people talk about climate change, they ought to start with some humility. The harsh realities are that for the last thirty years or so the environmental movement has been right on this question and business has been fundamentally wrong. I think the salient point to make is that although business is now engaged with this question and many businesses are doing good work on it, the reality is that isn’t the case for all businesses and I don’t think business has fully internalised the consequences for it.
Those were Gavin’s words at the Guardian Climate Change Summit in London, June 2009. To listen to part of Gavin’s speech and to others such as Donna Young, Head of Climate Change at BT, Andy Atkins, CEO, Friends of the Earth and Bruce Lerner of Kellogg’s, tune into the latest episode of the LRQA Business Assurance Climate Change Podcast Series