Just how useful is environmental legislation?
It looks as if some of the predictions and comments that were highlighted in this column earlier in the year are coming home to roost, as evidenced by a couple of recent stories from the global press.
The first story is, on the face of it, a quirky one from Harvard Business School, who hoped to get about 100 of its 900 students to take a voluntary oath, calling on MBAs to “create value responsibly and ethically”. In the event, over half of the students took the oath and, as is often the case with initiatives like this, the news spread virally on the internet and students from universities all over the world have flooded in asking to take the oath.
Now, this is a voluntary oath and has no standing in law - but don’t dismiss the mood change that is taking place among those who will (very shortly) be the business leaders of our global economy – and these are not graduates that will have the same problems as the rest of us in finding gainful employment! For those of you who still refuse to accept the reality of the situation and are still not pulling your weight in reducing your carbon use or, for that matter, your carbon emissions, change is coming. The new breed of business leaders coming in will not wish to lose face and the level of interest in taking this voluntary oath augurs well for positive change.
The other side of the coin was well illustrated by the recent news that two calendar and gift firms have both been fined nearly £10,000 for not disposing of packaging waste. There are rules in place and, although until recently, enforcement was haphazard at best, the times they are a’ changing! Money’s tight and if the government can pay off some of our astronomical debt by enforcing ‘green’ legislation, it appears that it now will. Bearing in mind that the CSR clauses in the Companies Act 2006 kick in from October 1st and that the Copenhagen Climate Conference may (we live in hope!) issue some rules, guidelines and regulations with some teeth, it looks as if the dinosaurs are now going to be challenged from both sides.
So the incomers are going to manage positive change from within and fines and taxes are going to manage change from without. If ever there was a time to acknowledge that the writing is on the wall and that it can no longer be ignored, I would have thought that it is now.
I have conducted some recent audits at a number of companies, large and small, all of whom could be saving money and measurably reducing their impact on the environment by reducing their usage of depleting carbon resource (notice how oil prices are moving up again?). It will be interesting to see if any of these recent developments, which will affect all those I recently met with, will spur any of them into tangible, business-savvy, action. I firmly believe that common sense will prevail with all the guilty parties…
The question is not if, but when; and will it be in time for them to leverage positive change and action to cement market share and promote growth? The clock is ticking.
