Washington DC (November 1, 2011) – The Carbon War Room, The Gigaton Throwdown, and the World Climate Summit today announced Tesco, Siemens, PepsiCo, Danone and Philips among the nominees for 2011 Gigaton Awards

(www.gigaton-awards.com )

The Gigaton Awards are designed to inspire and challenge businesses to run their business in the most carbon efficient way possible. It recognizes best-in-class in each of five major sectors, best-of-best, and other special awards announced nearer the time.

“It is so wonderful to see so many companies who are truly making a difference by reducing their carbon emissions, and even more exciting to see some of these leaders inspiring whole industries to change.” said Sir Richard Branson, Co-Founder of the Carbon War Room.  “I’m as excited as the rest of my fellow Academy of judges to be picking the very best from the shortlist over the next month”

The full list of nominees includes:

• Consumer Discretionary: Johnson Controls (US), Fiat (Italy), Philips (Netherlands)
• Consumer Staples: Danone (France),  PepsiCo, Inc. (US), Tesco (UK)
• Industrials: Deutsche Post (Germany), Schneider Electric (France), Siemens  (Germany)
• Telecommunications: Swisscom (Switzerland), Royal KPN (Netherlands) Telefonica (Spain)
• Utilities : Fortum Oyj (Finland),  PG&E (US), Centrica (UK)

The winners will ultimately be picked by an independent Academy of judges, comprised of business and civic leaders, and as with parallel awards in other industries the winners will be selected based on a mixture of quantitative and qualitative measures.

Company nominations are based on an assessment of performance on a range of metrics, including disclosure, volume and intensity emissions reduction over the last year.  Data for the world’s five hundred largest companies is taken from the Carbon Disclosure Project’s Global 500 report.  Companies then went through a filtering process by Greeenstar who conducted the assessment for the nominations.

“We are delighted that the CDP data set has been used by the Carbon War Room on the Gigaton Awards and to see the awards help demonstrate to the wider business community the changes that are possible as a result of more sustainable business practices,” said Paul Simpson, CEO of Carbon Disclosure Project.

The Awards evening will take place at the World Climate Summit, the exclusive conference for business, financiers, philanthropists and governments to accelerate solutions to climate change in. Durban on December 3^rd, during the United Nations annual summit on climate.

Last year’s winners included:

• NIKE for its energy savings program aimed at reducing its global greenhouse gas emissions,
• Reckitt Benckiser Group for demonstrating its leadership in mitigating risk from climate change and sustainable practices,
• Suzlon for its achievement in managing its emissions and overall sustainability milestones,
• 3M  for its leadership in improving energy efficiency and sustainable practices,
• Vodafone Group for its new business which provides carbon reducing connections, and
• GDF Suez for its demonstrated leadership by emitting among the lowest CO2 per KWh produced in Europe

For more information about The Gigaton Awards, visit www.gigaton-awards.com.

About the Carbon War Room

The Carbon War Room harnesses the power of entrepreneurs to unlock gigaton-scale, market-driven solutions to climate change. Over 50% of the climate change challenge can be addressed today — and profitably —under existing policy and technology conditions. We seek to facilitate a better flow of capital to entrepreneurial solutions that make economic sense right now.

For more information, visit www.carbonwarroom.com.

About the Gigaton Throwdown Initiative

The Gigaton Throwdown Initiative inspires companies, entrepreneurs, policy makers, and investors to think big about solutions to the climate crisis.  Founded by Sunil Paul in 2007, it sponsors research and awards to educate and inspire the private sector to achieve climate stability.  For more information visit: www.gigatonthrowdown.org

About World Climate Summit

The World Climate Summit is a new, open and collaborative framework for business, finance and government leaders to accelerate solutions to climate change until 2020. It is a global platform facilitating large-scale collaboration between businesses, financiers, philanthropists and governments on regional, national and global solutions to climate change.

http://www.wclimate.com/world-climate-summit/wcs-2011/

In the Americas, contact: Carbon War Room at press@carbonwarroom.com

For the rest of the world, contact: Peter Browning, Blue Communications
peter@blue-comms.com
+44 7760 787 028

Richard Branson’s Carbon War Room, a non-profit organization that harnesses the power of entrepreneurs to implement market-driven solutions to climate change, The Gigaton Throwdown, and the World Climate Summit today announced that the 2011 Gigaton Awards will go deeper than business evaluations to include a country specific category.

In just its second year, the Gigaton Awards expands its arena by not only recognizing pioneering companies that inspire gigaton change through their delivery in carbon reduction, but by also celebrating the best and exposing the worst countries—based on actual progress against promises and baselines as well as progressive business policies.

“Although this will be a fun event, there is definitely a serious side to it,” said Sir Richard Branson, Co-Founder of the Carbon War Room.  “Businesses have to fulfill their promises. When they do they inspire others, but when they don’t they stifle growth. In this way, countries are no different.”

Winners will be selected by an independent Academy, comprised of business and civic leaders, according to both quantitative and qualitative criteria. The Academy will select a winner for the country that has made the best overall progress in both reducing carbon emissions and using policy to stimulate the right conditions for business to create climate wealth. The country with the least progress, however, will be awarded the “Melting Glacier Award”.

“This new category sends a clear message to the world’s leaders that there does not have to be a trade-off between the economy and the environment. Citizens and businesses cannot reap the benefits of climate wealth unless the right conditions are created.” said Jigar Shah, CEO of Carbon War Room.

The 2011 Gigaton Awards ceremony will take place during the United Nations Climate Summit in South Africa on December 3 at the World Climate Summit, Southern Sun Hotel Elangeni, Durban.

Last year the Awards recognized individual companies across six major sectors for their leadership in emissions reductions and sustainable practices.  A pool of 28 nominees across six major sectors was selected based on quantitative data indicating emissions reductions on an annual basis. The six sectors included consumer discretionary, consumer staples, energy, industrials, telecommunications and utilities. The 2010 Gigaton Award winners included:

• NIKE for its energy savings program aimed at reducing its global greenhouse gas emissions,
• Reckitt Benckiser Group for demonstrating its leadership in mitigating risk from climate change and sustainable practices,
• Suzlon for its achievement in managing its emissions and overall sustainability milestones,
• 3M for its leadership in improving energy efficiency and sustainable practices,
• Vodafone Group for its new business which provides carbon reducing connections, and
• GDF Suez for its demonstrated leadership by emitting among the lowest CO2 per KWh produced in Europe.

The Awards are based on the Gigaton Throwdown project, launched in 2007, at the Clinton Global Initiative by Sunil Paul. The project encourages entrepreneurs, investors and policy makers to grow companies that stabilize the climate.

About the Carbon War Room

The Carbon War Room harnesses the power of entrepreneurs to implement market-driven solutions to climate change. The War Room’s unique approach focuses on bringing together successful entrepreneurs, business leaders, policy experts, researchers, and thought leaders to focus on market-driven solutions. For more information, visit http://www.carbonwarroom.com

About World Climate Summit

The World Climate Summit is a new, open and collaborative framework for business, finance and government leaders to accelerate solutions to climate change until 2020. It is a global platform facilitating large-scale collaboration between businesses, financiers, philanthropists and governments on regional, national and global solutions to climate change. This annual summit will run in parallel to the UNFCCC, with the inaugural one at COP 16 in Cancun, Mexico. For more information, visit www.wclimate.com.

About the Gigaton Throwdown Initiative

The Gigaton Throwdown Initiative inspires companies, entrepreneurs, policy makers, and investors to think big about solutions to the climate crisis.  Founded by Sunil Paul in 2007, it sponsors research and awards to educate and inspire the private sector to achieve climate stability.  For more information visit www.gigatonthrowdown.org.

Carbon War Room Contact:
press@carbonwarroom.com

By Murat Armbruster

February 28, 2011

During the week of January 31, GCGC team members traveled to Washington, D.C. for calibration meetings at the Carbon War Room (CWR) headquarters. While there, the team met with the head of real estate finance for Washington DC to formalize the CWR’s involvement in brokering capital for DC’s $250M Commercial PACE program.  Murat Armbruster, GCGC operation lead, then traveled to New York City for meetings with capital providers and city officials to discuss New York’s energy efficiency program.

GCGC Signs Memorandum of Understanding with Environmental Defense Fund (EDF)

This move reflects a productive step toward solidifying the partnership between GCGC and EDF, as EDF works toward hitting its energy efficiency goals. GCGC will assist EDF in a monitoring and verification project—supported by a Doris Duke Foundation grant—to obtain high-level data necessary for capital providers to move funds into this space.  GCGC will leverage EDF’s 20-person full-time energy efficiency staff and potentially participate in a PBS series on the economic return of climate capital.

The GCGC Team Continues to Grow

While attending a sustainable business conference at the Bainbridge Graduate Institute, Murat Armbruster recruited six high-caliber students to intern with GCGC. These interns will assist with the research and development of numerous Carbon War Room published case studies focused on different Energy Efficiency Renewable Energy (EERE) programs across the globe. These six interns are a dynamic addition to the group of nine interns that Joshua Kagan currently manages from UC Berkeley and UCLA. Additionally, GCGC has taken on renowned financial expert, Nils Kok, as a financial consultant to the team. Nils will be working with GCGC to develop a financial mechanism that can be brought to scale to deploy capital into the energy efficiency area.

Please see www.carbonwarroom.com/gcgc for more details.

By Mark Grundy

February 28, 2011

The monthly digital-only financial title will launch on May 3 at Creating Climate Wealth Summit, DC and will be available to a select group of C-suite executives in Europe, USA and Asia. The title will have an exclusive distribution into the heart of key decision makers at some of the world’s most progressive companies, inter-governmental and non-governmental organizations. The magazine will be produced in multiple formats for subscribers through online, iPad, Tablet and smart phone editions.

With an initial 167,250 readers per month, we want Creating Climate Wealth to become the leading green business digital magazine distributed directly to entrepreneurs and C-suite executives using Carbon War Room’s membership database and become available by subscription on iPad. Our readers are affluent, influential, decision makers, future shapers, international professionals and investors.

Creating Climate Wealth focuses on working with entrepreneurs and industry to reduce carbon emissions that make good business sense and benefit both the industry and the environment almost immediately. The magazine will focus on seven main sectors—Electricity, Transport, the Built Environment, Industry, Land Use, Emerging Economies and Carbon Management, and will  feature:

• regular news and event updates from Carbon War Room operations
• an in-depth look at Carbon War Room operations: shipping, energy efficiency and aviation
• thought-leadership from Carbon War Room founders, board members and C-suite
• research reports on gigaton-scale reduction opportunities and new clean technologies
• profiles on the latest and most promising clean tech investment opportunities
• and articles by some of the world’s best journalists on clean tech

Richard Branson will launch the magazine with an in-depth article on why he set up the Carbon War Room, and his vision for creating climate wealth and bringing economic prosperity to economies across the globe.

The first edition will incorporate the Creating Climate Wealth Summit program and be available in hard copy at the event.

Creating Climate Wealth Summit, Washington DC, May 3-4, 2011

Investing $1.3 trillion each year in green sectors would deliver long-term stability in the global economy, a new UN report has suggested. Spending about 2 percent of global GDP in 10 key areas would kick-start a global low carbon, resource efficient green economy.

Since the oil crises of the 1970s, billions of dollars have been pumped into technology development in the areas of energy efficiency, low carbon energy, efficient transportation, bio-fuels, and other areas. This investment has led to hundreds of breakthroughs that are today cost effective. Yet, full commercial utilization of these innovations and their financial rewards still elude us.

The 2011 Creating Climate Wealth Summit (www.creatingclimatewealth.com) series aims to fast-track this amazing wealth creation opportunity—one we can use to create economic growth, entrepreneurial wealth, well paid jobs, and make billion ton (gigaton) carbon reductions.

The North America Summit kicks off the series on May 3-4 with Creating Climate Wealth, DC – an invitation only event – providing a unique workshop-driven convening of executives, investors, entrepreneurs, and leaders from the private and public sector. The purpose is to identify specific US pathways to accelerate deployment of green solutions in the face of low expectations and weak mandates.

During the summit, delegates will address ways to bring existing technologies to scale, while meeting employment, economics and sustainability goals. The technologies are spread across seven clean tech tracks:

• Distributed Generation
• Energy Efficiency
• Island Nations
• Renewable Fuels
• Shipping and Freight
• Sustainable Agriculture
• The Future of Person Transportation.

Each working track begins ahead of the Summit with a Carbon War Room Research pre-read report on market barriers. Delegates will use their entrepreneurial expertise to problem-solve and technology expertise to build new approaches to delivering high-profit solutions.

• Full membership to the Carbon War Room
• Admission to 2 days of plenary and workshop discussion in one of the seven clean tech working tracks
• Access to leading clean technology finance, entrepreneurs and policymakers
• One year membership  of Carbon War Room’s online communities and operations
• One year subscription to the Creating Climate Wealth digital-only financial magazine 
• Invitation to the Climate Leadership Gala Dinner, 3 May, 2011 at the EPA Atrium, DC

Don’t miss other Creating Climate Wealth Summits in Sydney, Australia on 7-8 July and London, UK on 7-8 September.

For delegate registration: www.creatingclimatewealth.com

For sponsors: adavlin@carbonwarroom.com

For media and affiliate program: mwilson@carbonwarroom.com

The GCGC Operation Lead (Murat Armbruster) and Senior Advisor (Tony Paulson) traveled to the East Coast in July to conduct a site visit with two of our W1 Cities: Gainesville, FL and Atlanta, GA.  The purpose of the trip was to get an “on-the-ground” feel for how the cities were progressing and to identify potential areas for GCGC input.

During the visit, Murat and Tony also attended a conference in New York City conducted by the CAP (Center for American Progress).  Murat and Tony were able to establish important new contacts during these meetings and calibrate with industry leaders on creating climate wealth.

Peter Boyd will be a keynote at American Renewable Energy Day in Aspen, August 19-22nd. The Summit theme is “Creating a Clean Energy Economy at Speed and Scale”.

Peter will join other climate leaders, including T Boone Pickens, Ted Turner, James Cameron and over 50 other featured presenters to discuss and work through exigent topics, including:

• Creating Climate Wealth
• Renewable Energy Technology
• Food Security
• Ocean Systems
• Renewable Energy Finance
• The Lungs of the Earth: The World’s Forests
• Politics of Climate Change
• Youth and Climate

For more information, and to register for the conference, visit: http://areday.net/