Business Leaders Strengthen Commitment to Work on Global Issues
Things are looking, in Tony Blair’s words, "optimistic", as the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting ended yesterday with corporations commiting themselves to concrete developmental projects.
Some of the projects include:
- The formation of a new international partnership of seven organizations to establish a generally accepted framework for climate risk-related reporting by corporations.
- The establishment of a joint Israeli-Palestinian business council, to encourage and facilitate constructive cooperation between Israeli and Palestinian business leaders to reinforce economic relationship and help peace building efforts by a credible and legitimate voice.
- An alliance of leading companies with the objective to bring power to villages in Sub-Saharan Africa. Sub-Saharan Africa has the lowest electrification rate with three out of four people lacking access.
- An agreement by the heads of the Big Four Accounting firms (Deloitte, Ernst & Young, KPMG and PricewaterhouseCoopers) to work with the World Economic Forum Partnering Against Corruption Initiative (PACI) to support the global fight against corruption. Together, PACI and the accounting firms will explore the development of a framework for companies to benefit from independent reviews of their anti-bribery programmes.
Still, it was quite disappointing to see less corporate consensus and commitment on climate change than expected.
Nevertheless, as the WEF’s MD says:
"These projects may range in scope and ambition from the local to the global, but they are all examples of the growing interest of companies to work in partnership with governmental or civil society organizations to advance progress on critical challenges. Multistakeholder alliances such as these illustrate an important aspect of the "shifting power equation" that was the theme of our Annual Meeting this year – a new geometry of collective action and collaborative governance in a world characterized by growing dispersion of economic and political influence"
So yay :)
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Are they going to build solar power plants in Sub-saharan Africa? Or are they going to be foul fossil fuel-frying factories?
Current media reports on climate change getting more and more uncritical. Just a while ago, climate change was natural and accelerated by humans. Now it’s all caused by humans. The last time something like that happened in the media was just before the Iraq War, no?
Hmm…
Comment by ginunngagap — February 11, 2007 @ 10:38 pm
Are they going to build solar power plants in Sub-saharan Africa? Or are they going to be foul fossil fuel-frying factories?
I don’t know. I wonder why there hasn’t been more attempts to capture the desert sun. Check out the Trans-Mediterranean Renewable Energy Cooperation’s plans though!
Mmm, I say we go for nukes.
Comment by Cui Yu — February 15, 2007 @ 3:11 am