Ten new participants sign on to UN scheme to slash emissions
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The Climate Neutral Network (CN Net), launched in February and set up by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) in cooperation with the UN Environment Management Group, is an online forum to tackle the challenge of rising greenhouse gases.
The project assists entities aiming to slash their greenhouse gas emissions by making the strategies of pioneer organizations’ public as way to inspire those trying to reach their climate-friendly goals and by offering a forum for like-minded groups to network and shared best practices on the issue. It also aims to bring developed and developing country participants together to promote development.
“A small but growing band of countries, cities and corporations are making the clear and explicit statement that aspiring to low, even zero, emission economies is not some unobtainable pipe-dream but a path to profitability, stability and sanity in an increasingly unstable world,” UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner said today in Singapore at a two-day summit organized by his agency and the UN Global Compact.
He said that CN Net will spur the transition to a low-carbon world and alter the way business is conducted.
“The existing and new participants are leading by example and proving the art of the possible and a determination to be part of a global climate solution,” Mr. Steiner observed.
The new members of CN Net are:
- Belcorp, a Peruvian beauty corporation; Inoxia, a French advertising agency;
- BlindSpot, a UK research centre focusing on sustainable development; Incentive Sol, a Brazilian online carbon-trading venture;
- Sempre Avanti Consulting, a New Zealand-based carbon-neutral consultancy;
- Carbon Clear, a UK organization helping businesses and individuals reduce their carbon footprint;
- Wright Communications, New Zealand’s only public relations firm specializing in corporate responsibility and sustainability communications;
- Planète Urgence, a French non-governmental organization (NGO); and
- The Regional Ozone Network in Europe and Central Asia (ECA), created in 2003 to assist one dozen countries in the area phase out ozone-depleting substances;
- UNEP.
They join four countries (Costa Rica, Iceland, New Zealand and Norway), four cities (Arendal, Norway; Rizhao, China; Vancouver, Canada; and Växjö, Sweden) and five corporations (Co-operative Financial Services of the UK, Interface Inc. of the United States, Natura of Brazil, Nedbank of South Africa and Senoko Power of Singapore), who signed on in February.