Corporates sign UN charter on reducing carbon emissions

Mumbai: Over 150 companies, including drugmakers Novartis and Pfizer and mining giants Anglo American and Rio Tinto, have pledged to reduce carbon emissions from their operations in a voluntary pact.

Airbus, Coca-Cola, home furnishing major IKEA and luxury goods specialist LVMH were also among the 153 firms who committed themselves to greater energy efficiency.

Top environmentalists welcomed the companies'' promise to undertake "practical actions" to reduce their contribution to global warming, despite the lack of binding targets and urged governments also to do more to confront climate change.

Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, said he hoped more of the 3,000 businesses, which have signed up to a United Nations corporate responsibility drive, would also adopt the measure.

"You need a group of pioneers who get things going," he told a news conference in Geneva, where more than 1,000 corporate and government leaders met this week for a summit of the UN Global Compact. "These are some of the leaders who would inspire several others in the business."

"A company which signs this is making some fairly far-reaching commitments vis-a-vis its shareholders, vis-a-vis the public, and vis-a-vis consumers, never mind governments also," Achim Steiner, head of the U.N. Environment Programme, said.

He, however, noted that companies may take time to accede to the "caring for climate" initiative, which was distributed to all global compact members a few months ago for review.

Among business majors that opted not to sign the UN Global Compact are banks UBS and Credit Suisse; clothing retailers Nike, Hennes & Mauritz and Gap; oil company Royal Dutch Shell; mining group BHP Billiton; and coffee company Starbucks.

Bjorn Stigson, president of the Geneva-based World Business Council for Sustainable Development, said it was important that such initiatives remain voluntary to draw more companies into discussions on climate change and other issues.

Meanwhile, the chief executives of Coca-Cola, Levi Strauss, Lackeby Water Group, Nestle, SABMiller and Suez launched a "CEO Water Mandate" project to help companies better manage water use throughout their supply chains and help avoid a global water crisis.