Businesses push for strong lead on climate change

By Fiona Harvey, Environment Correspondent
Published: September 19 2008 03:00

Turmoil in the financial markets should not prevent the UK from taking a strong lead on tackling climate change, a group of leading businesses said yesterday.
The 18 businesses, including household names such as B&Q, Lloyds TSB, Shell and Vodafone, wrote to Gordon Brown, the prime minister, and the leaders of the opposition parties to ask for stronger action on climate change.
The group said the UK should work on the assumption that emissions would have to be cut by 30 per cent by 2020. This is much more than the 20 per cent reductions that the government has agreed to under a European Union proposal.
The group also called for the government to do more to ensure the money spent on procuring goods and services for the public sector was spent in an environmentally sound way, which would prop up the market for "green" goods.
Neil Carson, chief executive of Johnson Matthey, the speciality chemicals company, said: "Public procurement drives about one-third of the UK economy but to date, attempts to 'green' procurement have largely failed. The public sector should be setting bold, new and sustainable specifications for the products and services it buys."
The business leaders urged the government to adopt higher energy efficiency standards and supported the "progressive shift" to auctioning allowances under the EU's emissions trading scheme, rather than giving them away for free. The Treasury yesterday said the first carbon permit auction would take place on November 19. It will be the first such auction in the EU.
The group, brought to-gether by Cambridge University under a programme initiated by Prince Charles, is made up largely of companies that have taken on environmental commitments and are seeking a level playing field with competitors who have not committed themselves to cut emissions.
The companies signing the letter were Anglian Water Group, B&Q, BAA, Centrica, Eon, F&C Management, Faber Maunsell, John Lewis, Johnson Matthey, Lloyds TSB, Reckitt Benckiser Group, Shell, Standard Chartered Bank, Sun Micro-systems, Tesco, Thames Water, Unilever and Vodafone.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2008