CIBSE has added its support to an influential set of business leaders in the UK calling for an economic framework in which real progress can be made to prevent further climate change and alleviate its effects.

A group of CEOs and senior executives from companies including BP, F&C Asset Management, HSBC, John Lewis Partnership, and Sun Microsystems have got together under the auspices of HRH The Prince of Wales’s Business and the Environment Programme in response to the Prime Minister’s climate change speech in September 2004. Their main concern is how they “as business leaders can help bridge the gap between today’s economy and the radically different low-carbon future that will be needed” to deliver the Government’s stated aim of reducing emissions by 60% by the year 2050. The group has set out what Government needs to do, including investment in low carbon technology, further incentives and eliminating policy inconsistencies that undermine the effectiveness of climate policy. The impact on carbon emissions of all new legislation and regulation could be assessed as a matter of course.

Many companies have taken risks in investing in low carbon technologies and strategies but feel unable to scale up investment in low carbon solutions because of the absence of long-term policies. “We have a real opportunity to support industry ” says Mike Murray, CIBSE Board member.

CIBSE, along with Royal Institution of British Architects and the Institution of Civil Engineers, are members of a new All-Party Parliamentary Group on Climate Change and has had discussions with its chairman, Colin Challen MP. Challen has welcomed the support of the institutions and the influence they bring as well as the innovation in technical solutions to climate change.

Source

Building Sustainable Design