Tesco gets involved with the green agenda with the environmentally friendly and carbon footprint free store in Wick. Investing £100m in environmental technologies in an attempt to halve the amount of energy it uses by 2010, compared with its 2000 levels.

 

Tesco’s plan is one of the boldest attempts in business to get to fundamental grips with all the issues facing businesses globally. Green issues have at last been taken up by big businesses that are looking for the globally conscious high ground in the green versus business debate. HSBC are also heavily invested in the greener corporation game.

 

HSBC became the world’s first bank to become carbon neutral. Businesses can also “offset” their use of energy by investing in “clean energy” or environmental projects that reduce emissions outside the company. Traditionally this has included planting trees or investing in wind farms.

 

 

For HSBC, becoming carbon neutral involved moving to a green electricity supplier and introducing a recycling scheme that had the effect of confiscating all personal bins in its Canary Wharf headquarters. HSBC says that, “our leadership is convinced that humanity is having an impact on climate change and it could be extremely damaging in the long term”. At the same time, booming markets for trading carbon credits, effectively created by the Kyoto treaty in 1997, have attracted scores of investors focusing on green- energy projects, turning a natural disaster issue into a commercial carrot.

 

Two years ago Sir Richard Branson was intensely worried about the rising price of fuel for Virgin airlines and railways. After meeting Ted Turner, one of America’s leading environmental business evangelists, Branson decided to push his business empire into environmentally-friendly investments, in particular bio-fuels. This is proof that the green economy has arrived and that the world realises that combating global warming is not only a necessity, but an opportunity for businesses. For many, eco-capitalism is the new big thing. In less than seven years, funds investing in the carbon markets have gone from nothing to $6 billion. Governments face big challenges in combating climate change.

 

A far-reaching report last week by the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change at the University of Manchester warned that the British government must draw up a comprehensive action plan within four years or face the prospect of having to take far more drastic action in the future. According to the report, commissioned by Friends of the Earth and Co-operative Bank, Britain needs to cut carbon- dioxide emissions by 70% over the next 30 years. The target is higher than the government target of a 60% reduction by 2050.

 

As reactions and policy come to terms with how climate change affects the planet, we can only hope that the great financial reserves this will generate can be used to further the development of environmentally friendly approaches from big business to our homes, in particular to offset western expectations of developing countries as this cause can be used to inhibit growth where it is needed to alleviate poverty and infrastructure issues.