Thirty years ago, McDonald’s and the Environmental Defense Fund embarked on what they called “a groundbreaking collaboration to change the way environmental progress” is achieved. They created a template for business-friendly green groups to work with global corporations. EDF helped Walmart develop its landmark sustainability program. WWF helped Coca-Cola protect freshwater. The Nature Conservancy and Dow Chemical came up with tools to help companies invest in nature.
Such partnerships are fine, but they don’t go nearly far enough, particularly when it comes to climate change. At best, they generate modest reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. At worst, they deflect attention from a bigger problem: Most big US companies have failed do the most important thing they can for the planet, namely, to use their political power to push for smart climate policy.
A new coalition of 10 environmental groups has set out to change that. They were joined just days ago by a new nonprofit called ClimateVoice, the brainchild of Bill Weihl, the former sustainability czar at Google and Facebook.
“Silence is no longer an option,” Weihl says. “America’s corporate sector has the power to…put us on a path of steep carbon reductions,” and companies need to use their political clout for good.
Victoria Mills, a managing director at Environmental Defense Fund, which is part of the coalition, adds: “We need to get all of corporate America off the couch when it comes to climate policy.” The coalition also includes WWF, the World Resources Institute, BSR (formerly Business for Social Responsibility), and CDP (the Carbon Disclosure Project).
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