Environment Forum

Private sector’s role in reducing the use of ‘conflict minerals’

A view of a traditional gold mine, near the eastern Congolese town of Kamituga, a mining town.

The following is a guest host by Dunstan Allison Hope, managing director of BSR’s Information, Communications, and Technology Practice. He is also co-author of “Big Business, Big Responsibilities.” The opinions expressed are his own.

Buried in the 2,300-page U.S. financial reform bill that President Obama signed on July 21 is a little-noticed provision taking aim at a very different type of market: the international trade in so-called “conflict minerals” from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

These minerals — tantalum, tin, and tungsten — are found in everyday products from cell phones and computers to aircraft engines and cutting tools, and this first-of-its-kind legislation will require publicly traded companies using the minerals to file an annual report with the Securities and Exchange Commission to declare if they, or companies in their supply chain, are sourcing from the DRC or an adjoining country.

With so many industries and high-profile brands using these minerals, it’s not surprising that the U.S. government is targeting global business and their supply chains to address the challenge of conflict minerals. No one likes the idea of using products containing conflict minerals — especially if you remember similar issues with “blood diamonds.” Given the choice, we would buy elsewhere.

But for those of us who are working with corporations to tackle big global problems, the financial reform bill’s provisions raise three important questions:

Introducing 100 innovations

One man alone does not make a movement. But can he influence one?

There are no limits is the attitude espoused by PhD, MBA, entrepreneur, eco-designer, and visionary Gunter Pauli (above), who is now pouring his life’s work into a project to spark a new way of doing business, ergo a new economy.

He calls it the Blue Economy, because it’s not enough to be green and good to the environment. Blue creates a competitive and sustainable society and blue thrives on innovation. Blue is better than green, he asserts.

The 54-year-old founder and former CEO and president of Ecover is releasing the English and Korean editions of his book The Blue Economy at the Business for the Environment B4E Global Summit in Seoul today, Earth Day. It is to be published in 14 languages.

Pauli, who is fluent in seven languages, is addressing a crowd of business professionals, industry players and academics to promote his latest undertaking: “10 Years, 100 Innovations, 100 Million Jobs”. The project explores business opportunities that have evolved from mimicking technologies already found in nature with the goal of inspiring entrepreneurs.

Every week for two years, his foundation the Zero Emissions Research Institute of the United Nations University in Tokyo, will be publishing an essay and video about one of the innovations. He is touring the world meeting with government representatives and industry groups to engage in discussions about what their unique challenges are and what solutions may be proposed in the innovations identified by the ZERI foundation.

Oil sands and ethical investing at a price

At BP’s AGM on Thursday, ethical investors including the Co-Op and Calpers failed in their effort to convince BP to review its biggest planned investment in Canada’s oil sands.

Nonetheless, 9 percent of investors voted in favour of a review — a much bigger venting of shareholder angst about a single project than oil companies are used to hearing.

Was this a vote for the environment or a vote for ethical fund managers’ own businesses?

The oil sands business produces even more CO2 than traditional oil and the investor group, which also included environmental and faith groups, said they were concerned that if governments sought to fight climate change by hiking charges for emitting CO2, the Sunrise project may turn prove an economic catastrophe for BP.

Analysts don’t see a serious risk of this but the oil sands industry could still be an economic catastrophe for socially responsible fund managers.

With environmental groups successfully marketing oil sands as the dirtiest end of a dirty business, ethical fund managers will come under more pressure to exclude big oil companies – most of which now invest in squeezing crude from Alberta’s bitumen-drenched soil – from their funds.

That’s Citgroup’s view at least: “Institutions promoting “climate aware” products will continue to come under pressure if found to be exposed to the (oil sands) sector,” the bank said in a research note on Wednesday.

from Mario Di Simine:

Climate costs up front worth gains later, EBA chief says

Many negotiators and large industry groups at the COP15 climate conference in Copenhagen argue that climate action is a question of cost, but the price paid up front is worth the savings later, says the chief executive of a leading business think tank.

The cost often referred to in talks is regarding initial capital expenditures, or capex, but climate change solutions should be compared with operational costs, which would be decreased, and they should also be compared with the collateral of damage avoided cost benefits, Fiona Wain, chief executive officer of Environment Business Australia (EBA), told Reuters.com in an interview.

"If you haven’t got pollution, if you haven’t got waste, if you haven’t got greenhouse gas emissions, that’s a significant lessening of the drain on the public purse in all countries," she said.

EBA formulates policy recommendations on how to have commercial activity without collateral damage to the environment, public health and security.

Wain is hopefull that Cop15 will produce a minimum of 25 percent cuts in carbon dioxide emissions by 2020 and longer term at least 80 percent by 2050.

"That may seem like a draconian imposition to some but it’s also a way to build new markets, new industries and new jobs and that is the approach we should be taking.”

The environment is already big business. A UK report estimated the global Low Carbon & Environmental Goods & Services market to be worth about $6 trillion in 2007/8.