Monsanto Company (Press Release)

Safe Climate, Sound Business

General Motors, Monsanto, British Petroleum, and the World Resources Institute (WRI), today called for actions to reduce the risk of climate change. The group announced that for proactive leaders there are major business opportunities in meeting the climate challenge, if the policy environment is right. The comments were made at a Washington, DC, press briefing introducing the collaboration entitled "Safe Climate, Sound Business."

Calling for reductions and sequestration of greenhouse gas emissions and increased support for climate change research, the group said, "Leadership and commitment to action now are necessary to address the climate challenge." They also noted that "There should be no inherent conflict between economic development and a healthy environment. We believe that finding common ground and understanding differences among business, government, and environmental interests is critical to ensure both a safe climate and a sound business outcome."

Recommendations for governments and businesses were developed as part of the initiative, as well as an "action agenda" to implement the business recommendations for their own organizations. The group will continue to work collaboratively to implement the agenda in the next phase of the initiative. For more than 18 months, the group evaluated scenarios for meeting future world energy demand, explored new technologies and potential business opportunities, and reviewed how different policies could encourage businesses and consumers to respond.

The principal conclusions include:

- 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 the technologies needed to address the challenge, and by taking actions to reduce 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 effectively build a "Safe Climate, Sound Business" outcome by stimulating innovation, early actions, and cost effective reductions.

The group noted that while climate science is evolving, there is a growing consensus that action is merited. Further, it found that the long term nature of the challenge means that durable policy pathways need to be identified that can maximize sustainable economic development and environmental protection. "Balancing complex environmental, energy, and economic priorities, and implementing measures that confer multiple benefits," they asserted, "in contrast to the single-dimensional approaches of the past, will help to build a broad public consensus within and between nations to support those measures."

Partners agreed that the climate challenge provides business and industry an opportunity to lead and innovate, by offering products and services that take advantage of markets driven by climate policy. Business has strategic responsibility to its employees, shareholders, customers and the public to respond to the global climate issue through the following actions:

- Measure, track, and openly report greenhouse gas emissions from their operations.

- Seize near-term opportunities to reduce and sequester greenhouse gas emissions from worldwide facilities, products, and supply chains.

- Develop new cost-effective technologies, products, and business ventures for minimizing emissions and achieving sequestration in the 21st century.

- Include global climate considerations in new investment decisions in both developed and developing nations.

- Educate employees, customers, suppliers and other key stakeholders to raise their awareness of climate change issues, their own contribution, and potential response options.

- Participate in the debate on climate change at both the national and international level and contribute constructively to policy formulation and implementation.

Moreover, they called for government actions that are also essential to reduce the risk of climate change and put society on a long-term path to stabilizing greenhouse gas concentrations, including:

- Consider potential climate impacts and other social and environmental co-benefits in policy-making and resolve conflicts between laws and regulations that deter the attainment of emission reductions or sequestration.

- Implement market-based mechanisms based on national commitments and eliminate fossil fuel subsidies.

- Increase support for basic research on climate science and economics.

- Expand cooperative industry-government research programs to develop new, commercially viable, energy efficient, alternative fuels, and carbon sequestration technologies.

- Engage the general public, industry, and other stakeholders in a broad discussion to raise awareness and formulate appropriate responses to the global climate issue.

- Establish mechanisms that enable developed and developing countries to implement cost-effective options to achieve sustainable development objectives. In particular, they should work to identify common policy objectives for cooperation such as measures to improve air quality or protect agricultural productivity that can bring carbon emissions reductions or sequestration as co-benefits.

The group also described how the next phase of the collaboration will proceed by jointly and individually pursuing an "action agenda," including:

- Developing a joint protocol for measuring and reporting of greenhouse gas emissions from the companies' global operations.

- Achieving early reductions by exchanging best practices and business tools in the areas of energy efficiency, carbon offsets, and emissions trading.

- Creating strategic business ventures and alliances to speed the transition to a safe climate, sound business future.

- Using purchasing leverage to promote supplier energy performance and build market demand for low-cost renewable energy.

- Making climate protection an explicit criteria in global business investments. For example, working with and sharing climate friendly technologies and processes with business partners and suppliers in developing country markets.

- Expanding the initiative to include companies, environmental organizations, and governments in policy dialogues on technology transfer, emissions trading, and other mechanisms.

The group said it also hopes its cooperative effort inspires others to engage constructively in the climate debate and to undertake similar commitments.

"It is clear that the world has a significant challenge before it," they concluded. "The sources of human-caused greenhouse gas emissions go to the very heart of our economies and livelihoods. A shift in the direction of economic development to move purposefully toward sustainable development will help the world address not only climate change concerns but other economic and social issues as well. We should view the climate challenge as one part of this broader movement."

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