The New Nation - Internet Edition

Mostafa Kamal Majumder

Indonesian pulp and paper company April is making a strong claim of positive contribution towards the reduction of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions as its reforestation of about 50,000 hectares a year with 100 million seedlings is said to make a significantly positive balance.

Neil Franklin, sustainability director of the Asia Pacific Resources International Holdings Limited (April), told newsmen during the Business For the Environment (B4E) summit in Singapore that his company now manages 340,000 ha of highly productive plantations and 242,000 ha of protected conservation area in Riau, Indonesia.

His claims to sustainable management of forests, however, was challenged by Soumitra Ghosh, of the National Forum of Forest and People, India on the agrument that no plantation can restore forests, and that monoculture would harm biodiversity rather than helping it. "Forestry is not just a carbon calculation, it's a way of life. When a company takes over it encroaches up on the commons that this is opposed by communities."

April has been in partnership with the UN Environment Programme (Unep), reaffirms its commitment to sustainable development and climate change mitigation, and was one of the sponsors of the recently concluded B4E summit.

So was the Dow Chemical Company, probably the No.1 in the world with 3000 products exported virtually to every country, said E Adam Muellerweiss, its public affairs director on sustainability. 'To us sustainability requires making every decision with the future in mind," he said adding Dow has specific sustainability goals.

"Because virtually all industrial and consumer products today have embedded within them chemical reactions and compounds, we have a unique role in helping the world manage resources effectively and sustainably - and, as a result, a unique role in supporting individuals, communities and economies addressing their development needs and opportunities and in a way that is both credible and sustainable," says Dow paper.

With annual sales of US$54 billion and operations in 160 countries Dow indeed, has the capability to take the challenge of charting an energy efficient, sustainable development path by doing away with the generation of hazardous wastes through recycling and safe disposal.

Dow officials told journalists that between 1995 and 2005 their company reduced solid wastes by 1.6 billion pounds, wastewater by 183 billion pounds and greenhouse gas emissions by 20 per cent while significantly improving energy efficiency.

And the UN has a platform 'Caring for Climate' for business leadership to reduce their carbon footprints and develop innovative solutions to combat climate change. As world leaders work through the Bali roadmap to have a climate agreement beyond 2012, businesses also organise under the platform to do their part, because the activities of the big ones are truly global.

Launched by the UN secretary general at the Global Compact Leaders Summit in 2007, Caring for Climate is a voluntary global initiative that seeks to mobilise the business community to develop solutions that reduce climate risk while at the same time create value for the company. The initiative is jointly developed by the UN Global Compact, Unep and the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD).

The platform helps companies to advance practical solutions, share experiences, inform public policy as well as shape public attitudes. When endorsing the initiative, chief executives are prepared to set goals, develop and expand strategies and practices, and to publicly disclose emissions. This commitment to communicate annually on progress is part of the existing disclosure commitment within the UN Global Compact Framework, the Communication on Progress (COP).

Climate change will affect business and society in fundamental ways, and change the context in which the private sector operates and its ability to prosper. However, climate change also offers opportunities for business. By joining the platform companies can align their climate initiatives with a collective effort that has high credibility and visibility; gain access to experiences and best practices of their peers, facilitating the articulation of climate strategies and the cooperation to develop new technologies; reduce risks and capitalise on opportunities; demonstrate their role in advancing the agenda through vision, innovation and smart investment; and add their voice to a global call to governments to create incentives and rules that reward leadership and innovation.

Georg Kell, executive director, UN Global Compact and Cloud Fussler, programme director, Caring for Climate told newsmen during the B4E summit held in Singapore that about a dozen new big companies joined 230 others who had already been there with the platform, pledging to set goals to implement relevant strategies and practices, to publicly disclose emissions and to report annually on progress made.

Businesses from Bangladesh are not represented in the Caring for Climate or the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, and are distant listeners to the latest developments that are shaping up around the globe on the environment front. This isolation has the potential of ruining their future business prospects because they remain unaware of new production processes that develop as ways out of unsustainable processes. They may soon find themselves becoming easy targets to be dumped with the old processes that would be phased out and with those demands for their products.