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<div><font face="Geneva">Climate change is a threat - and an
opportunity - for the private sector</font></div>
<div><font face="Geneva">Op-Ed by Dimitris Tsitsiragos</font></div>
<div><font face="Geneva"
size="-1"><u
>http://www.worldbank.org/en/news/opinion/2016/01/13/climate-change-i</u
>s-a-threat---and-an-opportunity---for-the-private-sector</font><br>
<font face="Arial"></font></div>
<div><font face="Geneva">First published in <i>Capital Finance
International</i> on January 6, 2016.</font></div>
<div><font face="Geneva"
size="-1"><u
>http://cfi.co/europe/2016/01/ifc-climate-change-threat-and-opportuni</u
>ty-for-private-sector/</font></div>
<div><font face="Geneva"><br></font></div>
<div><font face="Geneva">Excerpts :</font></div>
<div><font face="Geneva"><br></font></div>
<div><font face="Geneva">"But why should businesses, whose main
responsibility is to their shareholders, care about climate change?
The answer is simple. "</font><br>
<font face="Arial"></font></div>
<div><font face="Geneva">"A study by CitiGroup found that rampant
warming could shave up to $72 trillion off the world's gross domestic
product, while another report in the journal<i> Nature</i> found it
could reduce average global incomes by nearly a quarter. A four-degree
Celsius jump would also batter sectors like agriculture, real estate,
timber, and emerging market equities. All told, that would make for a
toxic environment for businesses large and small."</font><br>
<font face="Arial"></font></div>
<div><font face="Geneva">"Investors wouldn't be immune either. A
report by Cambridge University suggests equity portfolios could tumble
by up to 45 percent as climate-related fears ripple across global
markets.</font><font face="Arial">"</font></div>
<div><font face="Geneva"><br></font></div>
<div><font face="Geneva">"Some companies are already starting to
feel the pinch. Earlier this year, the CEO of Unilever, which had $52
billion in 2014 sales, turned heads when he said natural disasters
linked to climate change cost his company about $330 million a
year.</font></div>
<div><font face="Geneva"><br></font></div>
<div><font face="Geneva">"Perhaps Dean Scarborough, the CEO of
manufacturing firm Avery Dennison, put it best in a recent interview
with the Harvard Business Review. "Climate change threatens (our)
supply chain, our customers' businesses, and the communities we're
part of. If we want to stay in business for the long term,
contributing to the fight against climate change is just smart
strategy.</font></div>
<div><font face="Geneva"><br>
"For years, companies around the world bristled at the idea of
going green. Their argument? We just can't afford it. But a dramatic
plunge in the price of eco-friendly technologies - especially
renewable energy - and the rise of carbon pricing, which charges firms
for releasing greenhouse gases, has changed that calculus. Companies
are now flocking to climate-smart investments, not only because it's
the moral thing to do, but because it's good for the bottom
line.</font><br>
<font face="Arial"></font></div>
<div><font face="Geneva">"A recent study that looked at a sample
of 1,700 leading international firms found that the money they put
into reducing greenhouse gas emissions saw an internal rate of return
of 27 percent - an indication that those investments were paying off.
Other studies, like one from Harvard, have found that companies with a
reverence for environmental and social sustainability outperform firms
that treat those issues less seriously.</font><font
face="Arial">"</font></div>
<div><font face="Arial"><br></font></div>
<div><font face="Arial">End excerpts. Full analysis here:</font></div>
<div><font face="Geneva"
size="-1"><u
>http://cfi.co/europe/2016/01/ifc-climate-change-threat-and-opportuni</u
>ty-for-private-sector/</font></div>
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<div><font face="Bookman Old Style" size="-1"
color="#000000">"Ten thousand years ago there were between 1 and
5 million people on the planet. There was plenty of room to
expand and move, and resources seemed endless."<br>
<br>
Niles Eldredge.<i> Dominion</i>. 1995. University of California
Press.<br>
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></span>==============<br>
"But we need to be clear, the large-scale predicament and the
emergent socio-economic stresses that we are beginning to experience
has very little to with fraud, corruption and the greed of a tiny few.
It has a lot to do with our human civilization running into
limits."<br>
<br>
</font><font face="Geneva" size="-3"
color="#0040C2"><u
>http://www.resilience.org/stories/2014-03-25/anger-complicity-in-a-t</u
></font><font face="Geneva" size="-3"
color="#000000"><u>ime-of-limits</u></font><br>
<font face="Geneva" size="-3" color="#000000"><u></u></font></div>
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