December 11th, 2009 by Amit Chatterjee

I woke this morning wanting to summarize my first week in Copenhagen, highlighting the key aspects of the whirlwind of discussions, activities, and events I’ve participated in, and of course the implications of what is going to help cleantech. By 9 am this morning, that was thrown out the door.

While I was attending the WBCSD event for business leaders, Yvo de Boer, Executive Secretary for the UNFCCC challenged the role of business in climate change negotiations. He argued that at COP15, the voice of business was not represented during the negotiations and business was to be blamed for its lack of impact.

In fact, many of the businesses at the conference, including Duke Energy, Coca-Cola, Unilever, and E.On, have comprehensive plans and thoughtful ideas to impact climate change and the on-going negotiations. Needless to say, after Mr. de Boer’s comments, the audience was buzzing.

In a working group of 22 CEOs, including myself, we began to highlight why business has a critical role and voice. While not perfect, the role that business currently plays does matter:

1. Business can create a predictable, stable framework for carbon that government or NGOs cannot
2. Business can leverage capital more effectively and efficiently to launch new technologies on a global scale in the marketplace
3. Business understands that for the value chain to work, suppliers and consumers must collaborate to decrease the creation of carbon

I will readily admit that business would benefit from a more unified voice to the COP 15 delegates vs. numerous conflicting perspectives, but to say that business has not contributed to this effort is to ignore the very operational mechanism that will be required to make climate change a reality. You need operators.

And of course on cue, Coca-Cola and Unilever launched a supply chain initiative for consumer packaged goods at this event. Their goal is to tackle 5 billion tons of emissions emitted in the consumer packaged goods space. I find it fitting that business is responding the way it usually does, with action.