Alliance Online - September 2007
CLIMATE CHANGE RESOURCES
The following is a selection of the available resources on climate change. It makes no claim to be comprehensive. It is simply an attempt to show some of the most current and relevant developments in a rapidly expanding field. For those seeking further information, many of the websites of the organizations listed include a section with links and other resources.
FUNDER NETWORKS
Canadian Environmental Grantmakers’ Network
A membership group of private, community, public and corporate foundations, and government and corporate funding programmes which together provide over $50 million in environmental grants in Canada. The network aims to facilitate information-sharing, collaboration, training and professional development, research, and communications among the country’s environmental grantmakers. Its major activities include members’ meetings, disseminating information to members on environmental and grantmaking issues, managing a website and members’ discussion group, and research on environmental grantmaking in Canada.
For more information
www.cegn.org/main.html
Environmental Funders Network
Brings together around 50 trusts and foundations that fund environment and conservation issues, most of them based in the UK. It is an informal network open to all dedicated grantmaking organizations or individual philanthropists with an interest in the environment. Its report in May 2007, Where The Green Grants Went3 (see below), showed that, despite widespread expressed concern about the issue, only a tiny proportion of UK charitable trust funding was directed towards climate change in 2004-05.
For more information
www.greenfunders.org
Environmental Grantmakers Association (EGA)
A project of the Rockefeller Family Fund, EGA was formed in 1987 with 12 member foundations from across the US. Current membership brings representation from 250 foundations. The mission of EGA is to help member organizations become more effective environmental grantmakers through information-sharing, collaboration and networking. Its publications include Green beyond Grants: A toolkit for greening foundation operations and Biofuels: Opportunity or threat? It also publishes the EGA Journal twice yearly, in spring and autumn.
For more information
www.ega.org
BUSINESS AND CLIMATE CHANGE
Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP)
A not-for-profit organization whose aim is to facilitate dialogue between shareholders and corporations from which a rational response to climate change will emerge. CDP provides a coordinating secretariat for institutional investors with a combined $41 trillion of assets under management. On their behalf it seeks information on the business risks and opportunities presented by climate change and greenhouse gas emissions data from the world’s largest companies: 2,400 in 2007. It compiles yearly reports on the carbon emissions of FT500 corporations based on the submissions that they make. Its website is the largest repository of corporate greenhouse gas emissions data in the world.
For more information
http://cdproject.net
Ceres
A US network of investors, environmental organizations and other public interest groups working with companies and investors to address sustainability challenges such as global climate change. Ceres companies, among which are Coca Cola and Bank of America, engage environmental, public interest, investor and other stakeholders, report publicly, and work to improve performance. Distinct from the main US network, the Ceres coalition is a group of over 80 investor groups, environmental organizations and investment funds united to advance corporate responsibility, engaging directly with companies on environmental and social issues. Members include organizations like Trillium Asset Management and the Union of Concerned Scientists.
For more information
www.ceres.org
Climate Change Capital (CCC)
An investment banking group which specializes in the commercial opportunities created by a low carbon economy, advising and investing in companies combating global warming. Its activities, which also include investment management and financing emission reductions, aim to make the world's environment cleaner while delivering attractive financial returns. CCC has advised and raised capital for low carbon projects including financing renewable energy installations in the UK; destroying industrial gases in India and China; and waste to energy projects in China and Hungary.
For more information
www.climatechangecapital.com
The Climate Group
Aims to advance business and government leadership on climate change. Founded in 2004, it is based in the UK, the USA and Australia and operates internationally. It runs a business leadership programme to support businesses’ progress towards a low carbon economy, and has recently become involved in HSBC’s $100 million Climate Initiative to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in some of the world’s major cities. Among its publications is Carbon Down, Profits Up, which claims that businesses achieving emissions reductions beyond those mandated by policy are enjoying significant financial returns as a result.
For more information
www.theclimategroup.org
Corporate Leaders Group on Climate Change
An initiative of the University of Cambridge Programme for Industry and the Prince of Wales Business and the Environment Programme. It brings together business leaders from major UK and international companies including Vodafone, ABN Amro, Johnson Matthey, Shell and Unilever, who believe that there is an urgent need to develop new and longer-term policies for tackling climate change. The group’s first public statement was a letter to the Prime Minister in the run-up to the G8 Summit in Gleneagles in 2005, which argued that investing in a low-carbon future should be ‘a strategic business objective for UK plc as a whole’. The group is currently working in partnership with the UK Government to increase domestic and international progress on reducing greenhouse gas emissions. It is also trying to engage other British businesses, the UK public, and governments and businesses internationally to back this effort.
For more information
www.cpi.cam.ac.uk/bep/clgcc/
Global Reporting Initiative (GRI)
An international organization that develops global sustainability reporting guidelines for companies and also for organizations in the public and non-profit sectors to report in a globally transparent and comparable way on economic, environmental and social performance, and on their impact on sustainable development. Currently, its Sustainability Reporting Framework is used by 1,000 organizations as the basis for their sustainability reporting (of these, 95 per cent are companies). According to its latest research on the correlation between sustainability reporting and brand name among the world’s most valued brands, 43 of the world’s top 100 brands now produce reports on their economic, environmental and social performance based on the GRI’s metrics. GRI is in the process of trying to increase use of the Guidelines by NPOs and public agencies by setting up special sector supplements, which are additional specialized guidance on how to report for certain sectors.
For more information
www.globalreporting.org
United States Climate Action Partnership (USCAP)
A coalition of businesses and environmental organizations whose purpose is to lobby the federal government to bring in as quickly as possible legislation requiring significant reductions of greenhouse gas emissions. USCAP has issued a set of six principles which include creating incentives for technology innovation, being fair to disproportionately affected sectors, and rewarding early action. Members include Alcan and General Motors from the corporate sector and the National Wildlife Federation and the Nature Conservancy from the environmental sector. It has produced a report entitled A Call for Action which sets out a blueprint for a mandatory economy-wide, market-driven approach to climate protection.
For more information
www.us-cap.org
REPORTS
Green Beyond Grants: sustainable practice for foundations
Environmental Grantmakers’ Association 2007
This has three sections for grantmakers wanting to introduce environmentally friendly practices into their operations, whether or not they make grants to environmental causes, entitled greening your office, greening your events and greening your efforts.
For more information
www.ega.org/news/docs/GreenOffice.final3.pdf
Where the Green Grants Went 3
Environmental Funders Network May 2007
Shows that in 2004-05, just 1.6 per cent of UK charitable trust funding was directed towards environmental work, and of this less than 10 per cent went directly to climate change. All told, climate change received less than 0.2 per cent of the total funding provided by charitable trusts on all areas of philanthropy in 2004-05, despite widespread acknowledgement that this is one of the world’s gravest challenges.
For more information
www.greenfunders.org/wp-content/uploads/wtggw3-final-260507.pdf
A Profile of Environmental Nonprofit & Voluntary Organizations in Canada
Canadian Environmental Grantmakers’ Network October 2004
Provides a profile of environmental non-profit and voluntary organizations in Canada, based on the findings of Statistics Canada’s National Survey of Nonprofit and Voluntary Organizations in 2003. Includes their major areas of activity, their financial and human resource characteristics and needs, and their structural capacities.
For more information
www.cegn.org/NSNVO%20Environment%20Highlights.pdf
The Death of Environmentalism: Global warming politics in a post-environmental world
Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus, 2004
Argues that, though environmental foundations and organizations have invested hundreds of millions of dollars in combating global warming over the last 15 years, there is very little to show for it, and that environmental groups have repeatedly tried and failed to win national legislation that would reduce the threat of global warming.
For more information
www.thebreakthrough.org/images/Death_of_Environmentalism.pdf
What Assures Consumers on Climate Change?
AccountAbility and Consumers International June 2007
Looks at the attitude of UK and US consumers to climate change. It finds that 66 per cent of consumers interviewed agreed that everyone needs to take responsibility for their personal contribution to global warming. While a majority of respondents want companies to provide more product-based information at the point of sale, and half would rather do business with companies that are working to reduce their contribution to global warming, many do not trust the information they get from companies in this regard.
For more information
http://www.consumersinternational.org/Templates/Internal.asp?NodeID=96524
Up in Smoke
New Economics Foundation October 2004
Draws on the views of environmental and development organizations to suggest that, in the face of global warming, new models of development and nature conservation will be needed and every policy decision at every level must pass the test of whether it will increase or decrease vulnerability to the effects of climate change. It argues that new resources are needed by developing countries to mobilize efforts to stop global warming, as well as much more money to adapt to the climate change that is already happening.
For more information
www.neweconomics.org/gen/uploads/igeebque0l3nvy455whn42vs19102004202736.pdf
BLUEPRINTS FOR ACTION
Design to Win
Design to Win provides a detailed and rigorous investment roadmap for philanthropists who want to tackle climate change. On behalf of six major foundations (David and Lucile Packard, William and Flora Hewlett, Doris Duke, Oak, Joyce, and the Energy Foundations), California Environmental Associates (CEA), a San Francisco-based consulting firm, prioritized potential investments by analysing their mitigation potential and their ability to prevent ‘lock-in’ of greenhouse gas emissions. CEA surveyed the scientific literature and sought the input of more than 100 of the world’s leading experts on energy and climate change. Based on this investigation, CEA developed a prioritized list of possible interventions and estimated each strategy’s expected emissions reduction and cost. Design to Win’s recommendations focus on carbon policy and interventions in five critical sectors: power, industry, buildings, transportation and forestry.
For more information
Contact Mitch Tobin at mitch@ceaconsulting.com or go to www.ef.org/news_reports.cfm
Stabilization wedges (or Princeton wedges)
Developed by the Carbon Mitigation Initiative, a joint project of Princeton University, BP and the Ford Motor Company, to find solutions to the greenhouse gas and global warming problem. The wedges illustrate the scale of emissions cuts needed in the future, and provide a common unit for comparing the carbon-mitigating capacities of various energy and storage technologies. The difference between the currently predicted path and a flat path from the present to 2054 gives a wedge shape, or ‘stabilization triangle’, which can then be divided into seven other wedges of equal area. These represent the results of adopting various mitigation strategies, each of which will produce a reduction in the rate of carbon emission of 1 billion tonnes of carbon per year by 2054, or 25 billion tonnes over 50 years. The website features an introductory film on the wedge concept and an interactive stabilization wedge game, a team-based exercise in which players build a portfolio of stabilization strategies and assess their impacts and costs.
For more information
www.princeton.edu/~cmi/resources/stabwedge.htm
WEBSITES
Campaignstrategy.org
Describes itself as modest suggestions for anyone trying to save the world. It includes 12 basic guidelines for running a climate change campaign and a list of links and resources, and produces a bi-monthly newsletter. The June 2008 issue is entitled Motivation and Climate Change.
www.campaignstrategy.org
OneClimate.net
A website devoted to climate change issues created by OneWorld UK. It is meant as a space for contributions from all over the world on emerging ideas and actions to counter climate change. It provides two maps: a thematic map, in which plans are laid out in different thematic areas, such as solar panels to carbon quotas; and a geographic map, which lets the user see what is happening in a particular place and how they can link up. Users can add their own information, either directly or by tagging.
www.oneclimate.net
One Planet Living
A joint initiative of BioRegional and WWF. The aim is to create a worldwide network of One Planet Living Communities, communities which aim to achieve a one planet ecological footprint by 2020. At present, say the organizers, if we all lived like the average American, we would need the equivalent of five planets to support us; the European lifestyle would require three. OPL has its own marque and OPL communities, to be so called, must adhere to its criteria and try to meet OPL’s common international targets for its communities. These include zero carbon, zero waste and sustainable transport by 2020. Active in Portugal, the UK, China, Australia and South Africa, it partners with progressive developers and provides them with expertise on building sustainable communities, based on lessons learned from its own projects which include Beddington Zero Energy Development (BedZED) in London.
www.oneplanetliving.org
Realclimate.org
Describes itself as a commentary site on climate science by working climate scientists for the interested public and journalists. It aims to provide a quick response to developing stories and give the context sometimes missing in mainstream commentary. It restricts itself to scientific topics and does not deal with the political or economic implications of its scientific observations. It also provides a ‘one-stop link for resources that people can use to get up to speed on the issue of climate change’.
www.realclimate.org
WiserEarth
A networking platform and information commons for the organizations and individuals working on social justice, environmental restoration, and indigenous issues. It is a searchable library of resources, jobs, events, discussions, people, and over 105,000 organizations. In regard to climate change, WiserEarth pools the climate-focused initiatives, resources and practical solutions being generated by individuals and organizations and provides the space for these solutions to be shared, built upon, and tracked. Its site has 42 areas of focus ‘portals’ looking specifically at climate issues including emissions trading, climate justice, and greenhouse gases.
www.wiserearth.org
For more websites on climate change and the responses to it, see the links and resources section of the sites listed above.
COMMUNICATING THE ISSUE
Campaignstrategy.org
The following reports have been produced by Chris Rose and others at www.campaignstrategy.org:
Research into motivating prospectors, settlers, and pioneers to change behaviours that effect climate emissions (2007)
UK Climate and Values Study Results (2005)
Why campaigning on climate is difficult (2005)
Becalmed in the Mainstream (2004)
Broadly, their work divides the UK population up into ‘settlers’ who dislike change, ‘prospectors’ who live in the moment and seek present gratification, and ‘pioneers’ who look forward and enjoy the idea of change. The attitude of each group towards climate change is broadly as follows: settlers don’t see it as a problem unless it immediately affects their family, their local area and their way of life; prospectors don’t see it as a problem unless it affects their prospects for achievement and success; only pioneers see it as a problem. The report argues that different messages will be needed to reach the different groups. Proper national research on public motivation and, more generally, communication ‘framing’ is a prerequisite to spending time and money effectively. So far, government and the main environmental NGOs have failed to realize this and most campaigns remain information driven. Solar power and carbon reduction, for example, are more likely to find favour among the prospectors if they are presented in terms of products or services, not as ethical choices.
For more information
www.campaignstrategy.org
The FrameWorks Institute
The FrameWorks Institute in Washington, whose work is advancing the non-profit sector’s capacity to communicate, conducted a project on how Americans think about climate change and how to reframe the issue for the next generation of communications. The research includes in-depth conversations with environmental organizations and with the public, a review and analysis of existing survey research, a conceptual metaphor analysis, a national public opinion poll, content analysis of news, media effects tests, and talkback testing. The result of the research is a toolkit, a CD-Rom presentation, additional application materials, workshops, and complete research reports.
For more information
www.frameworksinstitute.org/clients/climatemessage.shtml
See also
Positive Energy: harnessing people power to prevent climate change (2007) and Warm words: how are we telling the climate story and how can we tell it better (2006), both produced by Simon Retallack and others at the Institute for Public Policy Research www.ippr.org.uk
Painting The Town Green, 3rd edition (2006), Green Engage www.green-engage.co.uk
Bad Habits and Hard Choices: in search of sustainable lifestyles (2004), Brook Lyndhurst www.brooklyndhurst.co.uk
Desperately Seeking Sustainability (2005), Sixteen pain-free ways to help save the planet (2005) and Green choice: what choice? (2003), all produced by the UK National Consumer Council www.ncc.org.uk
I Will If You Will: towards sustainable consumption (2006), Sustainable Development Commission www.sd-commission.org.uk
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