UK CLG

On 29 June 2011, the UK CLG launched a new report into Government policy, calling for stronger action on climate leadership. Seize the Day reflects the member companies' belief that the UK Government has set the right goals for the economy, but must dramatically step up action to deliver these goals.

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Download a copy of the report.

The Anglian Water region is potentially the most at risk in the UK from climate change impacts, such as raised sea levels, wetter winters, and hotter, drier summers. How can we continue to provide water and waste water services to an increasing population when there may be regular drought conditions in the summer months and storms and excessive rain during the winter?

To continue providing these vital services to our customers into this uncertain future, Anglian Water has a long-term Climate Change Action Plan. The plan will look at the many impacts that we may face, how we might mitigate our current impacts, and equally important, how we may need to adapt to the changed environment we all face. It takes into account how we could manage the water resource. It considers what we may have to do to continue enhancing the biodiversity of this region, and will help us identify the steps we could need to take to protect our massive infrastructure.

The science of climate change is still not sufficiently understood to be absolutely certain about how things are going to change. The Action Plan does not have all the answers, yet. But it is a good start and it will give Anglian Water considered options as climate change begin to affect how we will need to manage our service to our customers. Fixing a dripping tap can save enough water to make 28 cups of tea a day.

BAA is the world’s leading airport operator. We are committed to playing our role in addressing climate change and as a major industrial energy consumer have set a target for 2020 to reduce our CO2 emissions from energy use by 34% over 1990 levels in absolute terms at Heathrow. We’re on track to meet that target through a comprehensive energy strategy focusing on a combination of measures to reduce our energy demand as well as investing in low carbon energy sources – for example the new Terminal 2 opening in 2013 as well as being a highly energy efficient building, going beyond Part L requirements will also be supplied through one of London’s largest Biomass energy plants. As an important player in the aviation industry, we also have a role to play in addressing the small but growing contribution that aircraft make to climate change. We believe that emissions trading is the best way to address this. We support action at a European level as a first step towards a full international system. As founding members of the Aviation Global Deal group (members include leading global airlines BA, Virgin, Cathay Pacific, Air France and the NGO the Climate group), we have developed a policy position for managing aviation’s global emissions, and which has directly influenced negotiations at the UNFCCC and ICAO.

BT is one of the world’s leading communications services companies, serving the needs of customers in the UK and in more than 170 countries worldwide. Their main activities are the provision of fixed-line services, broadband, mobile and TV products and services as well as networked IT services.

Doosan Power Systems is a leading provider of cleaner, greener technology, products and services for power generation: from turnkey steam power-plant projects to boilers, turbines, nuclear and Air Pollution Control technologies.

EDF Energy is one of the UK’s largest energy companies, producing around one-fifth of the nation's electricity from its nuclear, coal and gas power stations, as well as combined heat and power plants and wind farms. The company provides power to a quarter of the Britain’s population via its electricity distribution networks and supplies gas and electricity to more than 5.5 million business and residential customer product accounts.

EDF Energy’s safe and secure operation of its eight existing nuclear power stations at sites across the country makes it the UK’s largest generator of low carbon electricity. EDF Energy is also leading the UK's nuclear renaissance and has published plans to build four new nuclear reactors, subject to the right investment framework. These new plants could generate enough low carbon electricity for about 40% of Britain’s homes. They would make an important contribution to the UK’s future needs for clean, secure and affordable energy. The project is already creating business and job opportunities for British companies and workers.

In its nuclear activities EDF Energy has partnered with Centrica, which has a 20% stake in the company’s eight existing plants and in the project carrying out pre-development work for new build. Centrica also has the option to take up to 20% stakes in each of the four planned EPR nuclear reactors.

Through Our Sustainability Commitments, EDF Energy has launched one of the biggest environmental and social programmes of any British energy company. EDF is the official energy utilities partner and sustainability partner of the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games. The company is also helping its customers and others use energy more sustainably through products and initiatives such as Team Green Britain.

EDF Energy is part of EDF Group, one of Europe’s largest power companies. Following the integration with British Energy in 2009, the company employs around 20,000 people at locations across the UK.

In today's carbon world where fossil fuels are the dominant source of both energy and many raw materials, Johnson Matthey's products and technologies are helping to improve the resource efficiency of our industrial customers, clean and purify fuels before use and contributing to the reduction of emissions and the abatement of greenhouse gases. Johnson Matthey is a world leader in the manufacture and development of catalysts both for controlling air pollution from motor vehicles and chemical process catalysts which are used in a range of industrial processes.

The company is also a leading manufacturer of catalysts and catalysed components for fuel cells. Distributed power generation at point of use has the potential to be significantly more energy efficient than centralised power generation because the transmission losses are less and any waste energy can also be used for heating or cooling purposes. Fuel cells are particularly suited to distributed generation since they are highly efficient, quiet, non-polluting and are scalable from watts to mega watts. Johnson Matthey continues to invest in fuel cell component development, working with leading system manufacturers on a range of fuel cell technologies.

Alongside these developments Johnson Matthey is also focused on the introduction of new process technology and initiatives to minimise the impact and improve the energy efficiency of its own manufacturing operations.

Kingfisher is the leading home improvement retail group in Europe and Asia, and the third-largest in the world with 780 stores in 9 countries. Our main retail brands are B&Q, Castorama, Brico Dépôt and Screwfix.

We work with our partners to reduce our contribution to climate change by minimising the greenhouse gas emissions resulting from our stores and operations and offering products that are energy efficient both in their manufacture and use.

Our own CO2 emissions in 2007/08 were 548,000 tonnes – equivalent to the annual CO2 arising from energy use in around 89,000 UK households. We have a target to reduce our CO2 emissions per £million retail sales by 10% by 2012/13 (against the 2006/07 baseline of 64) and are working to achieve this by improving energy and transport efficiency and switching to lower carbon energy sources. We are also helping our customers reduce their own carbon footprints at home. B&Q UK is working with BioRegional to launch a range of One Planet Home products and Castorama France has introduced the ‘La Maison Éco’ (The Eco Home) initiative in stores.

Lloyds Banking Group is a leading financial services provider engaged in retail, commercial and corporate banking, general insurance, pensions and investments. It provides a range of products and services through well known brands such as Lloyds TSB, Halifax, Bank of Scotland, Scottish Widows and Clerical Medical. Its headquarters are in London, UK whilst the Group also has a global presence, operating an international banking business in over 30 countries. We are committed to building deep and lasting relationships with our customers, providing them with the financial help and advice they need at critical moments in their lives.

The Lloyds Banking Group actively manages its carbon footprint and is now subject to the Carbon Reduction Commitment Energy Efficiency Scheme. We manage overall efficiency through a group-wide programme built around our core value of ‘acting wisely’. The programme combines investment in infrastructure with employee engagement and behaviour. We have a long standing commitment to managing our environmental impacts, and were one of the first banks to launch an environment policy, in 1996. Further work is being undertaken during 2010 to produce and embed an enhanced and integrated environmental management system.

Lloyds Banking Group’s activities are supported by an established, staff initiated and led Sustainability Network which raises awareness of environmental issues and encourages each staff member to make a difference. In 2009, Lloyds Banking Group was listed as a leader in the Carbon Disclosure Project index. It is the highest ranked bank in the FTSE CDP Carbon Strategy 350 Index 2010. In November 2010, Lloyds Banking Group published its first Climate & Environment report.

Philips is the worlds leading supplier of energy efficient lighting solutions. Today more than two thirds of all electrical lighting systems currently installed in the world are based on older less efficient technologies, initially developed before 1970. During the last decade Philips has led a technological revolution in lighting. This new lighting, available on the market today for all sectors, not only saves energy but also offers better quality light. However despite these advances our current rate of changeover from older to newer technologies which include LEDs is too slow. At present it will take many decades before the full impact is felt. Our strategy is therefore to speed up this shift. The global CO2 savings off such as switch have been calculated as 106 billion euro per year in energy costs and 555 million tons of CO2.

The Shell Group shares the widespread concern that the emission of greenhouse gases (GHG) from human activities is leading to changes in the global climate. We believe action is required now to lay the foundation for eventually stabilising greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere in an equitable and an economically responsible way. It is time to pursue stable, market-based policies that help energy users and suppliers pursue innovative energy solutions.

We have exceeded our 2002 target to reduce emissions by 10% from 1990 and we will continue to manage emissions such that by 2010 our GHGs are still 5% or more below 1990 levels, even as we grow our business. We support and are working on efforts that promote:

• A stable, moderate and widely inclusive policy regime;
• New lower carbon technologies such as carbon capture and storage;
• International cooperation and international agreements;
• Involving developing countries;
• Flexible market mechanisms like effective 'cap and trade' systems;
• Efficient energy use by consumers;
• Natural gas as an important enabler to lower carbon intensity economic growth;
• A 'well-to-wheels'; or 'life-cycle' perspective of emissions.

British Sky Broadcasting (Sky) is the leading provider of multi-channel entertainment in the UK and has a viewership of more than 8.6 million customers in roughly 10.2 million households. Among its many services, Sky operates Sky Digital (the most popular subscription television service in the UK and the Republic of Ireland), produces its own TV content, and owns several TV channels. Sky had a turnover of £4.15 billion for its fiscal year 30 June 2005–2006. In May 2006, Sky became the world’s first major media company and the first FTSE100 business to become fully carbon neutral. In recognition of its efforts, Sky has also achieved ranking on FTSE4Good and the Dow Jones Sustainability Indexes and is the world’s only broadcasting company to be ranked in the Global 100 Most Sustainable Corporations index. More information on Sky’s carbon strategy is available at their Bigger Picture website.

We are committed to playing our part in tackling climate change by reducing our energy use and emissions from our distribution fleet. In 2005/6 we reduced our energy use per square foot by 15% which has saved 59,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions.

We have set up a £100m fund within our business to be used for innovation in sustainable environmental technology. We will be installing wind turbines at some of our new stores, alongside solar energy technology, geothermal power, combined heat and power and trigeneration. We will also be trialing gasification, a revolutionary technology to turn waste into clean, sustainable power.

Against a baseline of 2000, we want to cut the average energy use in our buildings (KwH/sqft) in half by 2010, delivering a huge reduction in carbon emissions. We built our first model energy-efficient store in Diss in 2005. The store uses 20% less energy than comparable stores by using clear roof sections to maximise natural light, wind turbines power the tills and cold air from chilled areas is re-used for air conditioning. Our second model energy store has now opened in Swansea.

We believe that a combined approach to managing the unavoidable impacts of climate change on our business, and to reducing our greenhouse gas emissions ('mitigation'), is vital. The challenge for our business, our regulators and our stakeholders is to find climate change solutions that balance competing environmental, social and economic demands in a sustainable, integrated and equitable way. In this context, climate change cannot be thought about in isolation, and we have integrated it throughout our 25 year forward look at our business, 'Taking Care of Water' and in our Periodic Review planning.

Unilever is one of the world's largest consumer goods companies employing over 174 000 people in around 100 countries worldwide.