Latest Press Release
The Prince of Wales launches a project to encourage sustainable practice and reporting
6th December 2006
The Prince of Wales is today launching a new project to help organisations measure more effectively the wider environmental and social costs of their actions.
The Accounting for Sustainability project will be launched at St James’s Palace, London to an audience of 200 business leaders, representatives from the voluntary sector, faith leaders and politicians. The Prime Minister, Lord Browne, Chairman of BP, and The Bishop of London will give keynote speeches. Click here to read the news story.
The project aims to develop a range of measures to help organisations embed sustainability into their decision-making processes and report their performance in this respect more clearly and consistently.
Sir Michael Peat, The Prince of Wales’s Principal Private Secretary, said:
“The Prince of Wales has said that climate change is the greatest challenge to face Mankind and he has asked what our children and grandchildren will say when they look back and assess what we did about it, in the light of what we know now.
“There is clearly a growing awareness of the need to preserve the environment and considerable strategic commitment from many organisations to do so.
“We hope that this project, working with a range of organisations, will develop the kind of practical mechanisms that will enable managers to translate this strategic commitment and vision into operational reality.”
His Royal Highness’s own charitable food company Duchy Originals is already beginning to quantify the greenhouse gas emissions produced during the growth, production and distribution of its products. The company is now considering how this information might be made available to consumers. The Prince hopes that more businesses might follow this lead.
Next year, in his Annual Review, The Prince of Wales will publish details of his own carbon footprint and set a target to reduce substantially the carbon emissions of his Office and Household.
A new film featuring Stephen Fry as Planet Earth and Al Murray as a cynical Moon will be shown at the launch. The film aims to help illustrate the fact that, in many cases, no financial value is placed by organisations on the wider cost of the Earth’s depleting resources.
This was an issue highlighted by Lord Stern in his recent report, in which he said: “Those who produce greenhouse gas emissions are bringing about climate change, thereby imposing costs on the world and on future generations, but they do not face the full consequences of their actions themselves.”
Work on the Accounting for Sustainability Project will be undertaken in the following areas:
• A model and methodology to enable managers to take greenhouse gas emission and other sustainability issues into account more effectively when making, for example, procurement, product design and building decisions. This work will include joint studies with participating companies in the food, construction and investment sectors.
• The project will also consider, again working with organisations in the public and private sectors, how the reporting of sustainability information can be clearer, verifiable and more consistent, both in formal reporting and on the labelling and packaging of products.
• Building on the success of “cap and trade” schemes for carbon and other emissions, the project will consider ways in which cap and trade schemes can be extended further.
• The project might consider the idea of a “kite marking” system for companies which voluntarily adopt better accounting for sustainability. The certification would help shareholders and consumers identify organisations that are following emerging best practice.
Click here to watch the short film, Costing the Earth, starring Stephen Fry as Planet Earth and Al Murray as the Moon.
To download the Accounting for Sustainability report click on the links below:
Introduction: Introduction and executive summary
Part 1: A review of academic literature
Part 2: Developments in public and private sectors and environmental markets
Part 3: International examples