People now recognize that those who say “these technologies are fantastic, they are just not ready” are actually a voice against progress. We have the technology, the workforce, the passion, and the knowledge. What we are lacking is confidence from our leaders, confidence from our finance ministers, and confidence from our financial institutions that this is actually the right course of action. It is only by convincing everyone that 50% of global climate emissions can be profitably offset with today’s technologies that we will win.

It is time for us to diversify our approach to this problem. Do we need a global price on carbon? Of course. While we wait for politicians, we have the tools to create a functioning marketplace so that we can get started on cost effective technologies at scale. This world needs more “doers” not talkers.

As delegates fly home from the Durban 2011 Climate Conference, almost 36 hours after the scheduled close, relieved that they reached an agreement, the Carbon War Room takes the opportunity to reflect on the outcomes.

The agreement reached – titled the ‘Durban Platform for Enhanced Action’- was essentially an agreement to keep talking about ways to reduce green house gases that are responsible for climate change. The final outcome was probably the ‘medium’ scenario, or as Tosi Mpanu-Mpanu, head of the Africa group suggested “we met mid-way”, in what could have been a disastrous set of negotiations. The worst-case scenario would have seen the majority of countries walking away from any agreement, which would have perhaps spelled the end for any hope of an inclusive multilateral process. The best-case scenario would have been an agreement on a multilateral approach to solve climate change that included commitments to legally binding mitigation target for all countries (including China, India and the US) and enhanced the level of ambition of those commitments.

Top down to bottom up

So where does the medium-outcome leave us? The developments in Durban suggest that we are firmly moving from a top down process (e.g. the 1997 Kyoto Protocol like treaties) to a bottom up approach, which allows countries to set their own targets, or commitments, and report on these at the international level in a consistent and transparent way. As European Commissioner Connie Hedegaard stated, “the big thing is that now all big economies, all parties have to commit in the future in a legal way and that’s what we came here for”.

Even though countries will be setting these commitments unilaterally, the parties agreed that we still need a place to ‘house’ these commitments and a platform to report against them. This is key, as it will allow a certain amount of transparency around how countries are progressing in meeting their mitigation commitment and what activities they are undertaking to achieve them. The implications for the private sector are that there will now be a level of transparency around what commitments countries have set, and therefore, how companies will be required to contribute and report on their emissions.

Small steps

South Africa’s International Relations Minister, Maite Nkoana-Mashabane, brought down the long-awaited final gavel at the end of the conference stating “we have made history”. The question therefore is, what history has been made? There is little that will be written about in the history books here, but there were small steps in the right direction in terms of substance. For example, the 200 countries present agreed, in the wee hours of the morning, to the following:

• A continuation of the Kyoto Protocol, the only existing protocol tying country to negotiated green house gas emission reductions and the continuation of the markets for carbon credits associated with the Kyoto Protocol. This is important for the private sector that is engaged in the buying and selling of these credits.
• An agreement to continue negotiations on some other substantive issues including a financial mechanism and the fleshing out a Green Climate Fund. This is relevant for the private sector, as it is likely that any public funds committed in the future will be used to leverage private funds to support mitigation and adaptation in developing countries.
• An agreement on the rules to help avoid deforestation and the measurement of emissions in this sector, which is highly relevant for companies operating in this sector.
• The establishment of a process to create a technology mechanism to support the deployment of low carbon technologies, a mechanism that the private sector could both contribute to and benefit from.

All of these mechanisms in themselves are a very small step in the right direction and often more symbolic than game-changing, however, they do demonstrate the opportunity for developed countries to support developing countries to mitigate green house gases with mature climate change solution technologies.

Where to now?

The next steps will be to iron out the details of the roadmap for a regime to include all countries, the operationalization of the various mechanisms that were discussed and to decide on the look and feel of the next commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol. All this will need to be considered before the next climate conference in Qatar in 2012, which is actually also the country with the highest green house gas emissions per capita in the world. Perhaps the Climate Conference will act as an inspiration for its host and its participants alike to embrace a low carbon future. Something on which Durban demonstrated, we can all agree.

Hilary McMahon is the Research Director at Carbon War Room. She can be reached at hmcmahon@carbonwarroom.com

by Ariel Schwartz

A funny thing happened over the past few years: Major companies that had no intention of cutting down carbon emissions did so anyway. But it wasn’t because they tried; it was because the recession forced them to cut back all over, and that translated into reduced emissions.

So last year, when the Carbon War Room launched its inaugural Gigaton Awards–an awards ceremony that highlights “outstanding performances as defined by measurable carbon reductions and quantifiable steps towards sustainability”–a lot of companies ended up nominated that really didn’t intend to be worthy of an environmental prize. Not so with this year’s nominees, announced this week. Every company on the list has tried and succeeded in slashing emissions.

This year’s nominees, which are broken up into five categories (utilities, telecommunications, industrials, consumer staples, and consumer discretionary) are a varied bunch, but they probably won’t surprise anyone who has paid close attention to the corporate social responsibility space. They include PepsiCo, Tesco, Swisscom, Philips, Johnson Controls, Siemens, and PG&E.

The Gigaton Awards methodology is a combination of data from the Carbon Disclosure Project’s Global 500 Report (an examination of CO2 reduction strategies at the world’s largest companies), annual emissions intensity analysis for each industry, and ethical criteria.

“The nominees are different from last year, partially because the methodology has improved from last year. We really took into account intention,” says Jigar Shah, Carbon War Room CEO and Co.Exist expert blogger. “This year, you had to call the pocket that you were shooting the eight ball into.”

PepsiCo, for example, has worked extensively with TerraCycle on waste reduction, which in turn cuts down on CO2. Deutsche Post has worked extensively on converting to alternative sources of fuel.

“We’re tired of giving awards to people who have said, ‘We’ve come out with this brand-new approach, please give us an award for trying,’” explains Shah. “What have you actually accomplished?”

The Gigaton Award winners will be announced in December.

Washington DC (November 1, 2011

(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

We are living in an uncertain time. The global economy’s recovery from the recession of 2008 seems fragile. Financial markets all over the world are in turmoil. Bank stocks are being hammered in Europe and the United States. Private sector employers are slow to hire due to growing speculation of a double-dip recession.

In the midst of these uncertainties, one thing is clear: The key to sustained economic recovery and long-term job growth lies in rebuilding our infrastructure. We need a global “impact economy” in which governments, corporations, entrepreneurs, and investors team up to solve the big environmental and social problems of our time while generating compelling financial returns–not just average returns. As Nobel Prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz says, “The real answer, at least for countries such as the United States that can borrow at low rates, is simple: Use the money to make high-return investments.”

The big problems of our time–as they always have been and always will be–can be traced back to aging, obsolete, or non-existent infrastructure. From the Roman Aqueduct of 312 BC to the railway between Beijing and Hong Kong completed in 1997, successful infrastructure projects have always helped make nations great.

But actually commencing these groundbreaking projects is becoming increasingly difficult and complex in the modern world. With shrinking government budgets, lowest cost is trumping common sense planning. As a result, we are more susceptible to volatile fossil fuel prices, changing commodity prices, and even climate change. Furthermore, the multi-national and cross-border nature of most transport, water, waste, and communications infrastructure projects infuse them with political challenges and of red tape. In short, governments that are low on cash and high on debt are having a hard time building infrastructure.

On the plus side, large-scale infrastructure projects have a long history of being funded with both public and private money. But for infrastructure-focused public-private partnerships to succeed, governments must have a clear vision of what they are striving to achieve and a plan for engaging the right partners in the right ways.

For the private sector–corporations, entrepreneurs, and investors–this means reasonable assurance that government policies underpinning the plan will not be held hostage by politics or fall victim to election cycle partisan posturing; that risk will be properly shared between private and public entities; and that innovation and investing will be rewarded with compelling financial returns.

Unfortunately, too many countries–the United States chief among them–lack leaders with a clearly articulated vision and the ability to communicate national policies and plans well enough to gain widespread support. And now we are running out of time. More than ever, we need infrastructure visions and plans that support new sources of energy, solve the world’s growing water and food scarcity issues, and create new markets and industries.

The amazing thing is that we already have private sector businesses with solutions that are scaling rapidly. The scary thing is that governments do not know who they are and have no good way to coordinate with them.

In the realm of public-private partnerships for impact economy infrastructure development, Europe is leading the way. The United Kingdom, for example, published a National Infrastructure Plan last year that lays out goals and priorities for infrastructure investing of 200 billion GBP over five years–funds that will be raised through “smarter use of public funding, improving private sector investment models, encouraging new sources of private capital and addressing the regulatory failures that stand in the way of greater private sector investment in our country’s infrastructure.”

As the U.K. plan shows, high-impact environmental, social, and economic returns will come when the public and private sectors work together on large-scale infrastructure projects. Now the U.K. has to find fearless change-makers to implement this plan.

It’s time to go the distance. Let’s build a global impact economy, one million new jobs at a time. Who’s with me?

Jigar Shah is CEO of the Carbon War Room, a nonprofit that harnesses the power of entrepreneurs to implement market-driven solutions to climate change and create a post-carbon economy.

With 167,250 readers per month, Creating Climate Wealth (CCW) is the leading green CEO business designated magazine distributed directly to cleantech entrepreneurs, investors, C-suite corporate executives and NGO’s using data provided by the Carbon War Room. In addition to the Carbon War Room (www.carbonwarroom.com) subscriber base, the online version of CCW magazine is mailed to 1,800 registered users of www.shippingefficiency.org (45,000 unique users). The magazine is available in print and online using Yudu.

Creating Climate Wealth magazine promotes market driven solutions across the key editorial pillars (verticals) to drive down emission levels and showcase alternative solutions encouraging entrepreneurs and established industrial innovators to bring cleantech innovation to market.

Our readers are influential high net worth individuals and future shapers, all of whom are critical decision makers in driving the burgeoning adoption of clean technologies.

Top line CEO level editorial coverage extends across the complete lifecycle from investment and capitalisation to cleantech innovation and right through to emission trading and certification/verification to deliver the right information board rooms need to understand.

Founded by Sir Richard Branson, the Carbon War Room team includes notable high profile entrepreneurs, visionaries, change- makers and subject experts that understand the urgent need to address climate change and the potential for wealth generation in the post-carbon economy.

Readership demographic

• Male 77%

• Key life stage

20% are 55+

• Affluent

• Influential • International

• Investors

Circulation

US Edition – 10,450

35% are aged between 35-44 years 45% are aged between 45-54 years

Average Earnings $341,000

71% Authorise Crucial Decisions 85% have at least 1 office abroad An average of 8 business trips per year

92% have a financial portfolio

Source: CWR Data & Environmental databases

European Edition – 15,750

Asian Edition – 7,250

Total Circulation – 33,450 copies

Pass On Readership – 5

by Jigar Shah, CEO Carbon War Room

The local food movement in America is gaining steam. The question is whether can it attract sufficient capital from the private sector to build large, profitable businesses. Without that, it’s just a fad.

Energy and agriculture have more in common than you might think. Food and fossil fuels prices are rising at the same time as land and water are becoming increasingly scarce commodities–and both energy and agricultural production processes are harming human health and the environment. At the same time, both industries suffer from complex and inefficient distribution systems and heavy government regulations that favor the status quo. Each industry is also supported by government subsidies that benefit incumbent producers over young companies that might have solutions to some of these problems.

And then there is the inextricable link between energy and agriculture. The food industry in the U.S is one of the largest and most wasteful consumers of energy. Various studies estimate that the food industry consumes around 10% of the nation’s energy with only about 20% of it used in the actual production of food. The rest goes to processing, home refrigeration and preparation, and of course, transportation. Transportation costs also are a major factor in food prices, especially for water-heavy vegetables such as romaine lettuce.

For all of these reasons and others, the local food movement in America is gaining steam. Families, restaurants and schools are purchasing more of their food from farmer’s markets. Community, school, and backyard gardens are springing up all over. And in places where land is scarce–large, densely populated urban areas–consumers and some businesses are taking to the sky and growing food hydroponically in rooftop greenhouses.

The question we must ask is, “Will this scale?” For anything to scale, it must solve a real problem, be cost-effective and replicable, and have the right systems in place to support it. To do that, it must attract sufficient capital from the private sector to encourage entrepreneurs to build large, profitable businesses.

In 1999, when I was an MBA student, I came up with a solution for selling solar power to businesses at or below the going rate for electricity. My idea was to form a company and raise money from big investors to cover the upfront costs of buying photovoltaic solar panels for commercial customers’ rooftops. The company would install, own and operate the plants. In return, customers would sign power purchase agreements locking in electricity prices for as long as 20 years. This would create a steady revenue stream for the company and an affordable way for customers to use (very) locally generated clean power for their businesses, instead of paying the rates du jour for power generated by utilities at central stations and transmitted over aging and congested transmission lines.

I wrote a business plan, but it was the height of the dotcom era and no one was interested in financing a company that did not have a sock puppet for a mascot. It wasn’t until 2003 that I actually got SunEdison off the ground. It was not easy because we had to overcome the qualms of conservative investors and, in many states, push to get laws and regulations that posed potentially insurmountable barriers. But over the next few years, we created a thriving multi-billion industry with scores of competitors.

Now, a company called BrightFarms is taking a similar approach to rooftop farming. In business since 2006 as a consultant to rooftop farmers, the company recently adopted a new business model. BrightFarms contracts with supermarkets to build, own and operate onsite greenhouses on store rooftops. There are no upfront costs for the retailers–just the obligation to purchase food grown hydroponically on store rooftops farms through long-term, fixed price contracts. BrightFarms has a policy of not announcing customers until its farms are delivering produce, but it has signed up eight supermarket chains as customers so far. (In the interests of full disclosure, I am an investor in BrightFarms.)

Retailers purchasing food grown on their premises completely disrupts the complicated and expensive food industry supply chain. It reduces transportation costs to almost zero–offsetting the higher upfront costs of greenhouse farming over conventional methods–and increases margins because the produce has a longer shelf life. It also lowers water, fertilizer, and other inputs by over 90%. And it gives consumers what they want: fresh, tasty, affordable produce. Most importantly, the model requires local labor to work, so it keeps and adds jobs in local communities.

Only time will tell if this new model catch on with enough U.S. supermarket chains to make a difference in our nation’s food supply.

 But what is clear now is that no silver bullet exists for America’s energy and food production issues. Just as solar rooftop systems meet some but not all of our energy needs, rooftop gardens can make some but not all of our nation’s food production and distribution more efficient. Finding the right answers for energy or food production will require us to invest in thousands of technologies that are scalable and make an impact.

 But given the economic and environmental benefits of rooftop gardening, it is worth it to start trying.

[Image: BrightFarms]

Over the next decade and beyond, Brazil will rely heavily on the clearing of tropical forests to make way for the expansion of livestock rangeland.

Deforestation in this region is speeding climate change and is responsible for the loss of plant and animal biodiversity. Brazil’s annual carbon emissions are estimated at 5 Gt CO₂e, with 70 percent coming from deforestation and agriculture. Under current practices, the country’s national goal to double beef and leather exports by 2018 will result in clearing of vast areas of tropical rainforests.

There are compelling business opportunities to deter this increase in deforestation and greenhouse gas emissions.

With just a moderate level of intensification, an area the size of California could be saved from future deforestation. This could provide healthy returns on investment and a total mitigation potential of 6.5 Gt CO₂e by 2018.

This report describes the primary opportunities to mitigate emissions from Brazil’slivestock production and deforestation and examines current barriers to implementation.

Read more and download the full report here.