Can Business Help Stop Global Warming and the Other Four Horsemen? — Daniel Callahan

“If my other four horsemen can learn anything from the success of the Paris agreement for global warming, it may be that success is possible with the following approach: work diplomatically to gain the cooperation of industry, regardless of how obstructionist it has been in the past; intensify efforts to find technological pathways that work while also lowering prices; develop citizens’ groups at the local level and broader grassroots social movements to break through the barrier that too often succeeds in raising interest and concern but fails to generate action and legislative attention; if there are real dangers and hazards, do not hesitate to evoke them (but do not exaggerate); and, most of all, don’t give up. The problems of the five horsemen are most likely chronic, to be lived with and combatted simultaneously. That can be done.”—Daniel Callahan, The Five Horsemen of the Modern World: Climate, Food, Water, Disease, and Obesity

We conclude our week-long focus on Daniel Callahan’s book, The Five Horsemen of the Modern World: Climate, Food, Water, Disease, and Obesity with a list of organizations and business-led initiatives that are working to solve the key problems affecting today’s world. As Callahan argues in the final chapter of his book after decades of causing many of these problems, businesses are now increasingly active in trying to combat them. Most of these companies and industry partnerships are focused on ending global warming but the organizations at the bottom are concerned the other issues Callahan discusses in his book. Here is Callahan’s list:

* GreenBiz Group: large-membership group with annual detailed reports on global industry and environment efforts
* Risky Business Project: a potent group of U.S. business leaders working to get business to prepare for global warming
* The New Climate Economy: an international group of economists aiming to achieve lasting economic growth while also attacking the risks of climate change
* UN Global Compact: UN-business partnerships with voluntary corporate responsibility
* The International Business Leader’s Forum (UK): founded by the prince of Wales to focus on the role of business in society, embracing social responsibility as “core business”
* World Economic Forum: producing studies and reports and holding an annual meeting in Davos combining economic growth and risk of global warming
* The Climate Group and the CDP (formerly known as the Carbon Disclosure Project): formed RE100 with the aim of getting 100 companies to pledge to switch to 100% renewables
* New York Declaration on Forests: thirty-four companies pledged to cut deforestation
* Business for Innovative Climate & Energy Policy (BICEP): twenty-nine consumer businesses that have the goal of getting widespread U.S. bipartisan energy and climate legislation; its 2013 Climate Declaration gained 800 companies and had 1,000 signatories by September 8, 2014, just before New York climate week and march
* World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD): a CEO-led organization of companies working to create a “sustainable” future for business
* United States Climate Action Partnership (USCAP): business and environmental organizations to get national legislation to require significant emission reductions
* The B-Team: not-for-profit organized “to catalyze a better way of doing business for the well-being of people and the planet”
* The Divest-Invest Campaign: led by the Wallace Global Fund to pledge divestment from fossil fuel stocks and move money into clean energy investments; announced gaining 800 global investors with combined assets of $50 billion by 2014, and aiming for $150 billion by 2015
* We Mean Business: a coalition of organizations working with the world’s influential businesses and investors to accelerate the transition to a low carbon economy

Here are a few examples pertinent to the other four horsemen. There are not as many organizations doing for four of the horsemen what business is doing for global warming:

* Anheuser-Busch: SmartBarley benchmarking to improve crop yield through better water efficiency
* Sustainable Agriculture Guiding Principles: Coca-Cola, requiring its supply-chain members to practice these principles to maintain farmlands and communities
* Coca-Cola: with Nature Conservancy and World Wildlife Foundation, collecting water fees from companies operating in the developing world to restore natural ecosystems
* Better Cotton Initiative: founded by partnership between World Wildlife Fund and IKEA to address water-gobbling cotton production
* WATERisLIFE: the Drinkable Book holding twenty filter pages, each capable of filtering up to 100 liters of water at a cost of about 10 cents per page
* Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves: partnering 1,000 groups with 45 national governments to built a sustainable market for clean cooking solutions
* Healthy Weight Commitment Foundation: a CEO-led partnership to reduce obesity, comprising more than 250 active corporations and nonprofits