Andy Dickson, a senior consultant and member of Impact's leadership team was invited to attend the World Business Summit on Climate Change, held in Copenhagen on 26 May 2009.

The event was hosted by the Copenhagen Climate Council, an international body brought together with the aim to present a consistent and cohesive set of recommendations from world business leaders to Heads of Nations at the Copenhagen Summit on Climate Change COP15 in December hosted by the Prime Minister of Denmark.

The meeting in December will be a major milestone in addressing the climate change issue. For the first time the USA, under the new Obama government, will be seen as likely to support serious legislation to incentivise the move towards a low carbon economy. Together with China the USA represents 43% of all carbon emissions, any attempt to reduce carbon emissions must have their buy in, something that the previous Bush government was not willing to do.

As an SME, Impact found ourself shoulder to shoulder with over 500 representatives of the worlds business giants such as Pepsico, BP, Swiss Re, HSBC and Fujitsu at the three day conference. The aim of the event was to reach common ground on how business needs Governments of the World to incentivise growth of clean industry through strict international legislation on carbon emissions and investment in new technology and innovation.

Impact is highly committed to an agenda of sustainable business practices. We have embraced the fact that business must act swiftly to act responsibly and recognise the opportunities offered by the new and different business landscape that is required to ensure the world does not continue on a potentially disastrous exponential growth in rising air temperatures.

The conference was led by Ban Ki-moon the Secretary General of the UN and Nobel peace prize winner and ex-Vice President of the USA, Al Gore. Gore's leadership has made a significant contribution to changing the mindsets of political and business leaders on the issue of climate change.

The event was attended by 500 business leaders, many of whom are CEO’s of multi national businesses. Already in the transport and energy sectors much work has been done to invest in cleaner processes to embrace the use of clean fuels. Unfortunately greener technology forces price increases and without the necessary global legislation organisations committing to cleaner practices are likely to lose out in competitive markets where legislation or government action doesn’t reward clean innovation.

Impact was specifically involved at Copenhagen in the recommendations put together for December relating to the Value Chain. All organisations potentially can influence climate change more by addressing the supply chain that they are part of helping drive cleaner operating processes. In some cases a business can represent less than 1% of the total carbon footprint of their product or service. Only by addressing the whole chain will we make significant progress.

Impact is currently working with a number of international business customers to help them with issues around sustainability. Both social and environmental challenges can pose both risks and opportunities and Impact is helping our customers to rise to the challenge.

Specifically Impact helps organisations to build sustainability into their strategy, build leadership capacity, engage employees and innovate their products and services to build business success and contribute both to society and the environment.

Impact was one of the first organisations to sign the UN Global Compact an initiative started by Kofi Anan to encourage businesses to address the challenges we face as a planet through good business practices.

“I am really proud that Impact is taking a lead on climate change,” comments Andy Dickson, “We are a small business but we punch above our weight. The worst thing we can all do is think that we are too small to make a difference the reality is we must all do everything we can to influence good practice both at work and at home. Anyone with young children like myself will know that they are already bought in to more responsible behaviours to improve society and the environment. They understand that the planet has limited resources. They are the leaders of tomorrow but we must act now as the leaders of today to ensure that we reduce carbon emissions immediately. The decisions made in December will possibly be some of the most important in World history. I am pleased to know that we have played our part in Copenhagen to help shape those decisions”.

Further information

To read more about how Impact can help your organisation with your Climate Change strategy, please click here.

To download literature on Climate Change Strategy, please click here 

If you would like to talk to Impact about Climate Change email us.

VIsit the Copenhagen Climate Council website.

To view a short film from the World Business Summit, please click here.