Ten Companies Kick Off Global Greenhouse Gas Register

DAVOS, Switzerland, January 26, 2004 (ENS) - Ten large companies have committed to disclose the amount of climate warming greenhouse gases their worldwide operations produce on a new publicly available website - the Global Greenhouse Gas Register.

The World Economic Forum officially launched the Register at its annual meeting, which wound up Sunday in the Alpine village of Davos.

Developed in partnership with international business and environmental organizations, the Global Greenhouse Gas Register (GHG Register) is intended to encourage corporate climate action by creating a global standard for the disclosure of their emissions inventories and reduction targets.

First on the Global GHG Register are - the aluminum company Alcoa; the mining and natural resource company Anglo American; three cement and aggregates companies: Cemex, Holcim and Lafarge; the computer company Hewlett Packard; the Russian Joint Stock Company Unified Energy System of Russia; the German utility RWE; ScottishPower; and the European energy company Vattenfall, which is based in Sweden.

These companies together account for an estimated 800 million tons of carbon dioxide equivalent per year. Carbon dioxide (CO2), produced by the combustion of coal, oil, and gas, is the most voluminous of the greenhouse gases that blanket the planet, trapping the Sun's rays. In terms of the Kyoto Protocol, their combined carbon dioxide equivalent is five percent of that emitted by the 37 industrialized nations governed by the protocol.

Emissions rise from a British steelworks. (Photo by Ian Britton courtesy FreeFoto)

Once a company’s data is vetted and accepted by the World Economic Forum, it will be displayed on the Register’s website. The Forum anticipates that initial data will be posted as early as February.

The Global GHG Register was developed as a collaboration between environmental, conservation, and business organizations - BrasilConnects, Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, the International Emissions Trading Association, the Pew Center on Global Climate Change, the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, the World Energy Council, the World Resources Institute and the World Wildlife Fund.

Janet Ranganathan is director of the GHG Protocol Initiative, a project of the World Resources Institute and the World Business Council for Sustainable Development. She says, “While companies will use the GHG Protocol as the standard to account for their emissions, the Global GHG Register will provide a central platform where these individual reports can be publicly accessed.”

“Many firms are being asked by their shareholders, governments and communities to take voluntary steps to manage their impact on the climate," said Richard Samans, managing director of the World Economic Forum’s Global Institute for Partnership and Governance, "but until now there has been no platform for the public disclosure of such information on a comparable, globally consolidated basis. "

The register responds to corporate expressions of alarm at the potential costs of global warming to their portfolios. One such expression occurred in November 2003 at UN Headquarters in New York.

Institutional investors representing over $1 trillion in assets to examine the risks of climate change to their pension funds issued a statement demanding tough new steps by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, corporate boards, and Wall Street firms to increase corporate disclosure of the risks posed by climate change to investors.

Donald Johnston (left), secretary-general, Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, and William Parrett, CEO Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, at the forum session Setting the 2004 Agenda: Corporate Governance, January 21, 2004. (Photo by Jean-Bernard Sieber/swiss-image.ch copyright World Economic Forum, used with permission)

The 10 companies committed to the Global GHG Register are aware of the threats posed by global warming. “Anglo American recognizes fully the challenges to its businesses and to society at large arising from greenhouse gas emissions, said Dr. John Groom, senior vice-president of safety, health and the environment at the mining and natural resource company.

"We are committed to reducing unit emissions through a focus on energy efficiency, continuous improvement in technology and operations and by increasing awareness and understanding of the challenges wherever we operate," he said. "The Register represents an opportunity for us to contribute to greater corporate transparency and to benchmark our performance against others."

The California Climate Action Registry (CA Registry), assisted by CH2M Hill, developed the technical infrastructure for the online reporting application and database of the Global GHG Register.

The CA Registry’s existing Internet based reporting tool, CARROT (Climate Action Registry Reporting Online Tool) serves as the basis for the Global GHG Register.

“The CA Registry’s CARROT was the ideal foundation for our GHG Register – a clear, usable, dynamic platform,” said Samans. “It’s a solid registry application already used successfully by major businesses to track and report their GHG emissions.”

Nongovernmental organizations welcomed the new register because it will make corporate accountability for emissions more transparent.

“Around the world, companies that are aware of the responsibilities of corporate citizenship have not been deterred by the impasse in negotiations between governments, and have not waited for multilateral decisions before responding,” said Edemar Cid Ferreira, chairman and founder of BrasilConnects, Brazil.

“The Global GHG Register provides companies, including those in Latin America, the opportunity to show their commitment to the achievement of real results in environmental projects,” he said.

The World Economic Forum is a global community of business, political, and intellectual leaders that states it is impartial and not-for-profit, tied to no political, partisan or national interests and committed to improving the state of the world. Incorporated as a foundation, and based in Geneva, Switzerland, the World Economic Forum the Forum has NGO consultative status with the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations.

Kofi Annan, UN Secretary-General, delivers a speech during The Future of Global Interdependence session at the World Economic Forum. (Photo by Remy Steinegger/swiss-image.ch copyright World Economic Forum, used with permission)

Annan said that in 1999, globalization appeared to be almost "a force of nature," and reminded them of his warning that it would be only as sustainable as the social pillars on which it rested.

"I was concerned that unless global markets were embedded in shared values and responsible practices, the global economy would be fragile, and vulnerable to backlash from all the 'isms' of our post-cold-war world: protectionism, populism, nationalism, ethnic chauvinism, fanaticism and terrorism," he said.

At that time, he called for a Global Compact - to bring companies together with UN agencies, labour and civil society to support nine principles in the areas of human rights, labor and the environment. Today, there are more than 1,200 corporations from more than 70 countries involved from virtually all sectors of the economy.

"Yet much more can be accomplished - and it must," he said, announcing that a Global Compact Summit will convene this June at UN Headquarters in New York "to reassess and reposition our efforts, aiming at even higher levels of achievement."

Representing the United States, Vice President Dick Cheney did not mention climate, greenhouse gases, sustainability or the environment. He focused on the threats of terrorism and weapons of mass destruction.

U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney addresses the World Economic Forum (Photo by Andy Mettler/swiss-image.ch copyright World Economic Forum, used with permission)

"Were they to gain those weapons - either by their own efforts or with the help of an outlaw regime - no appeal to reason or mortality would prevent them from committing the worst of terrors," he said. "In the words of the recently published EU Security Strategy, the terrorists are, 'willing to use unlimited violence to cause massive casualties.'"

We must act with all urgency that this danger demands. Civilized people must do everything in our power to defeat terrorism and to stop he spread of weapons of mass destruction.

"Today Europe and Canada have 1.4 million soldiers under arms, but only 55,000 deployed, and many European militaries still maintain they are overstretched," Cheney said.

The vice president said promoting democracy "throughout the greater Middle East and beyond" through cooperation among governments and international institutions is important.

But, he called for "more deployable European forces" which he termed a "critical" need. Cheney said "when diplomacy fails, we must be prepared to face our responsibilities and be willing to use force if necessary."

On behalf of the European Union, Bertie Ahern, Prime Minister of Ireland and President of the Council of the European Union, spoke of enlargement during his Special Address on Saturday. "On the 1st of May," he said, "we will welcome the 10 new Member States into our Union. We will finally end the artificial divide that has separated our peoples in Europe."

Bertie Ahern Prime Minister of Ireland and EU President addresses the World Economic Forum. (Photo by E.T. Studhalter/swiss-image.ch copyright World Economic Forum, used with permission)

The Irish Presidency has placed the European Union's economic agenda at the center of its Presidency program, Ahern said, with "knowledge, innovation and ideas" to be the engines of EU economic growth.

In a first appearance at the annual World Economic Forum meetings, the UN World Food Programme's Executive Director James Morris attended this year's forum to present a direct appeal to the world's leading business executives to support the fight against hunger.

Despite reaching a record 110 million hungry people with food aid last year, the world's largest humanitarian agency, the World Food Programme (WFP), announced Friday that it needs greater support from the private sector in order to tackle the increasing problem of world hunger.

A recent report by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization shows the number of hungry people in developing countries increased by 18 million in the second half of the 1990s, indicating that hunger is getting worse, not better.

More than 800 million people in the developing world suffer from hunger. Every five seconds a child dies of hunger or from the diseases associated with it.

The agency's first corporate partner is TPG, the global mail, express and logistics giant. It has enlarged WFP's transport, warehousing and supply chain capabilities and provided critical funds to feed more people worldwide.

"One of the most valuable benefits of our partnership with TPG is the involvement of company employees in the fight against hunger. From China to Spain and France to Australia, TPG staff are actively raising money for WFP's work, and highlighting the plight of the hungry. TPG has told us that it has been a tremendous boost to employee morale," said Morris.

TPG's CEO, Peter Bakker said, "By providing our skills, resources and people we have been able to assist WFP reach the hungry. We strongly encourage other private sector companies to join WFP in its fight against world hunger."

WFP is the world's largest humanitarian agency. In 2003 WFP fed nearly 110 million people in 82 countries including most of the world's refugees and internally displaced people.