Focus
The Prince of Wales's work on the Environment
30th November 2007
The Prince of Wales has been an environmental leader for more than two decades. Since he made his first speech on the environment at the “Countryside in 1970” conference in Cardiff, The Prince has been instrumental in establishing a number of programmes and initiatives to help protect the planet and prevent climate change.
Today marks the launch of The Bali Communiquè on Climate Change. The Communiquè was initiated by His Royal Highness to bring together 150 global companies, including Shell and Coca Cola, to urge world leaders to seize the window of opportunity provided by the next UN climate change negotiations which start next week in Bali, Indonesia. Click here to visit The Bali Communiquè on Climate Change website.
Here is a brief summary of some of His Royal Highness’s work in this area over the past 17 years:
May 1990 - “Earth in Balance”
The Prince made a documentary for the BBC in 1990, titled Earth in Balance, which is a personal, impassioned call from The Prince of Wales for a reassessment of man's relationship with the natural world. In the film, His Royal Highness considers some of the world's great environmental issues such as pollution, global warming, deforestation, the ozone layer and rapid population growth. His message is that unless mankind's approach to the Earth and its natural resources was changed, "I believe that we shall - sooner rather than later - face a reckoning".
Founded in 1994 and ongoing - The Prince of Wales's Business & the Environment Programme (BEP)
The Prince of Wales's Business & the Environment Programme (BEP) was established in 1994 and is run by the University of Cambridge Programme for Industry. The Programme helps senior executives explore the business case for sustainable development and integrate sustainability principles into their organisations. There are seminars held each year in Cambridge, New York, Seattle, Sydney, Salzburg and Cape Town which are attended by business leaders and representatives from the public sector and non-governmental organisations. The Programme has introduced over 1500 executives from over 400 organisations in more than 30 countries to the sustainability debate. Click here to visit the BEP website.
The Corporate Leaders Group on Climate Change:
The Corporate Leaders Group on Climate Change (CLGCC) was developed under the auspices of The Prince of Wales’s Business and the Environment Programme. On 6th June 2006 at the behest of the CLGCC, 13 senior executives of some of the leading businesses in the United Kingdom offered their support to The Prime Minister in taking bold steps to prevent climate change. In an open letter to the Prime Minister, the CLGCC including James Smith, Chairman of Shell UK and Mervyn Davies, Group Chief Executive of Standard Chartered Bank, said that the United Kingdom government should take ambitious action to stimulate investment in low carbon technology and should use the negotiations of the next round of the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) as an opportunity to take on challenging targets.
Pension sector:
His Royal Highness’s work with the Pension sector centres around the “P8 Summit” he convened at Clarence House on the 6th of this month. BEP, in association with the Cambridge Programme for Industry, hosted the first P8 Pension Summit: a meeting of the world’s eight largest public pension funds to discuss investment strategies to address climate change.
Insurance sector:
His Royal Highness launched the ClimateWise Principles, a set of principles which form a minimum standard for action on climate change for the insurance sector, at the Association of British Insurers climate change conference in September this year. These include promoting pay as you go motoring policies and discounts for greener vehicles and offering homeowners advice on how to make their houses more eco-friendly.
At The Prince’s request last year, the Cambridge Programme for Industry undertook to facilitate a dialogue with the insurance sector on developing industry standards to address climate change. This was done through The Prince of Wales’s Business and the Environment Programme, and in association with Business in the Community and The Prince’s Trust Insurance Leadership Group. His Royal Highness hosted the first meeting at Highgrove in September last year, attended by Polly Courtice, Chief Executive of BEP, Julia Cleverdon, Chief Executive of Business in the Community, and Steven Haddrill, Chief Executive of the Association of British Insurers (ABI).
This was followed by a lunch at Clarence House, where the initial group was joined by representatives of ten insurance companies. BEP then worked with the ABI and a “working group” (chaired by Peter Hubbard, Chief Executive, AXA Insurance), to develop a set of principles which form a minimum standard for action on climate change for the insurance sector. The working group were:
1. Allianz
2. Association of British Insurers
3. Aviva
4. AXA
5. Benfield
6. F&C Investments
7. Friends Provident
8. HBOS plc.
9. Lloyd’s of London
10. Royal & Sun Alliance
11. Swiss Re
Click here to read the news story and here to read the speech.
January 2007 - The 10th Global Environmental Citizen Award
The Prince was awarded the 10th Global Environmental Citizen Award in New York from Harvard Medical School's Centre for Health and the Global Environment by former US Vice President Al Gore and actress Meryl Streep. In his speech, The Prince took the opportunity to call for ‘urgent steps’ to counteract climate change and warned that the world was looking to the United States of America for leadership and that governments needed to help fight climate change.
Click here for the news story and here to read the speech.
April 2007 - The May Day business summit on Climate Change
On 30th April 2007, Business in the Community (of which The Prince has been President for 22 years) was asked by The Prince to stage a May Day Business Summit on Climate Change. A gathering at St. James’s Palace, attended by His Royal Highness, was accompanied by simultaneous regional events, linked by video, at which more than 1,000 business leaders came together to create and commit to a powerful agenda to tackle climate change. The companies attending were asked to make firm commitments on what they will do to tackle their contributions to climate change. 800 companies are now part of the May Day network and the event will be repeated next year.
Click here to read the news story and here to read the speech.
October 2007 - WWF speech to launch The Prince’s Rainforest Project
The Prince of Wales launched the Amazon initiative for the World Wildlife Fund, and his own project The Prince’s Rainforest Initiative which will work collaboratively with the WWF. Combatting deforestation is likely to be one of the quickest and most cost-effective means of reducing carbon dioxide emissions – currently, destruction of the rainforests results in 20 per cent of total carbon emissions. The Prince’s Rainforest project will work to put a value on the Rainforests that makes them more valuable alive than dead. Click here to read a feature about The Prince's Rainforest Project.
Click here to read the news story and here to read the speech.