Climate Change Power to the People

Ethical Corporation
July 7, 2006

At the end of March the UK government released its Climate Change Review.

While most commentators picked up on the fact that Britain is no longer on course to meet its domestic target of a 20% reduction in CO2 emissions by 2010, others drew attention to an equally interesting development – the increased focus on measures to engage individuals and encourage them to reduce their own “carbon footprints”.

The new programme set out in the review outlines initiatives aimed at strengthening domestic energy efficiency and encouraging the purchase of more efficient electronic equipment, as well as expressing support for a wider public communications initiative on climate change.

The UK government is not the only one turning the spotlight on consumers.

The European Commission recently launched a €4.7 million “You control climate change” campaign and the Victoria government in Australia this week released a TV ad pushing the message that using less energy saves money and the climate.

Then click here and quote "ECT05" to order your free trial subscription to Ethical Corporation magazine. In the UK, the BBC is midway through its “Climate Chaos” season and you can hardly open a newspaper or switch on your television without coming across some kind of global warming story.

A few dissenting voices in the business community have been saying for some time that the responsibly for reducing emissions cannot lie solely with the private sector.

But far from giving businesses a chance to take a step back, improving public awareness and encouraging individuals to reduce emissions will make the case for corporate leadership on climate change even more compelling.

Better educated consumers will expect the companies whose products and services they buy to be taking positive action.

So which companies are out there, leading the way?

One example is Sky, which recently became the first major media company to go carbon-neutral, cutting its net carbon emissions to zero through energy efficiency, green energy and purchase of offsets.

And Sky hinted it was seriously thinking how it might encourage and facilitate climate-conscious actions from its customers.

Chief executive James Murdoch said: “We want to help families find victories in how they use energy … we’d like them to feel that even small actions, multiplied many times, add up.”

BP recently launched a high-profile, big-budget advertising campaign looking to educate consumers about their own carbon footprints as well as communicating the steps that BP itself has taken to invest in new, low-carbon technologies.

In terms of empowering customers to take action themselves, it has already launched offset fuel products, most notably to business customers in Australia, and at the Eden Project in the UK.

British Gas in March announced an initiative offering 880,000 householders across Britain the opportunity of rebates of up to £100 on their council tax if they worked with the supplier to install energy efficiency measures.

This scheme clearly spreads the burden of responsibility across business, government and the individual.

The emphasis on joint responsibility is important because asking the average consumer to take action without clearly demonstrating that business and governments are also doing their bit and reaching into their own pockets is a risky strategy.

It is clear that levels of awareness about climate change are heading skywards. With all this information, customers will increasingly ask, “OK, but what can I do about it?”

Those companies currently developing simple, attractive propositions to empower customers to reduce their personal impact on the climate are well positioned to become the real winners.

Sophy Bristow is a project manager with the Climate Group, which works to catalyse leadership among governments and companies to address the challenge of climate change.

www.theclimategroup.org