Feb 15 2008

Tokyo Declaration: Twelve Well Known Brands Vow to Fight Global Warming

( – promoted by buhdydharma )

Cross-posted from THE ENVIRONMENTALIST

In a “Tokyo Declaration” announced today, Sony, Nokia and ten other well known brands have announced that they will work with the World Wildlife Fund to involve their suppliers, customers and transportation partners in the fight to halt global warming:

Tokyo – A business group including leading companies such as Sony, Nokia and Nike has come together to present the Tokyo Declaration, a joint call to tackle the urgent issue of climate change. Signing the declaration at the Climate Savers Summit 2008 held by WWF and Sony in Tokyo today, a dozen business leaders highlighted that the world’s greenhouse gas emissions must be reduced by more than 50 percent by 2050, and that emissions must peak and start to decline within the next 10 to 15 years in order to keep global warming below the dangerous threshold of 2 degrees Celsius.

More below the fold…

The text of the declaration (PDF) lists twelve signatory brands: Allianz, Catalyst, Collins, Hewlett Packard, Nike, Nokia, Novo Nordisk, Sagawa, Sony, Spitsbergen Travel, Tetra-Pak and Xanterra.

The announcement was made by Sony Chairman and CEO Sir Howard Stringer just before the anniversary of the Kyoto Protocol and is designed to bring attention in the business community to the urgent nature of climate change.

More links and information here

41 comments

Skip to comment form

  1. Here’s the link again

    • pfiore8 on February 16, 2008 at 00:22
    • #

    for good news stormchaser!

  3. what are they actualy concretely commiting to doing ?!?….

    I have noticed the rise of greenwashing……

    this appears to me to be that…..

    am I missing something here …..

    second question …….

    I believe that it was asserted that we needed to create the cuts mentioned in the next decade or so to avoid a rise of greater than 2 degrees celsius…..

    but there is a delay between the time capital is committed and infrastructure produces a change…..

    that delay varies depending on the type of infrastructure….

    for a great deal of the heavier infrastructure it is about 14 years…..

    there is as yet no concommitant dedication of actual capital at the scale needed to produce the level of reduction in the time mentioned….

    • Edger on February 17, 2008 at 11:52
    • #

    They are businesses acting out of self interest to retain market share. They’ve probably done their market research and know that the vast majority of their customers are concerned about global warming, and they want to keep the markets “goodwill”.

    So to me this means that we’ve at least reached a tipping point in terms of public awareness that is antithetical to the propaganda coming out of Exxon and bushco.

    It means we’re winning the propaganda war.

    Last year, January 23, 2007, ten US corporations announced similarly…

    WASHINGTON – The chief executives of 10 major corporations, on the eve of the State of the Union address, urged President Bush on Monday to support mandatory reductions in climate-changing pollution and establish reductions targets.

    …

    Members of the group, called the U.S. Climate Action Partnership, include chief executives of Alcoa Inc., BP America Inc., DuPont Co., Caterpillar Inc., General Electric Co., and Duke Energy Corp.

    >At a news conference, the executives said that mandatory reductions of heat-trapping emissions can be imposed without economic harm and would lead to economic opportunities if done economy-wide and with provisions to mitigate costs.

    Many of the companies already have voluntarily moved to curb greenhouse pollution, they said. But the executives also said they do not believe voluntary efforts will suffice.

    It must be mandatory, so there is no doubt about our actions,” said Jim Rogers, chairman of Duke Energy. “The science of global warming is clear. We know enough to act now. We must act now.”

Comments have been disabled.