The Confederation of British Industry (CBI) has released “Climate Change: Everyone’s Business” the report of its Climate Change Task Force. The task force consists of representatives of BT, Shell, npower, Barclays, Ford, bp, Tesco, Corus, British Airways, Rolls Royce and loads of other big businesses.

Most of the findings of the task force are pretty run of the mill, but there are three things which make this report interesting:

• The CBI has traditionally taken a reactive approach to the environmental agenda, seeing itself as a defender of business against restrictive environmental legislation. This is a significant shift to a more proactive, forward looking agenda.
• The task force acknowledges that the UK’s carbon footprint is larger than the 2% of global emissions coming directly from the country. The misleading 2% figure has been used by many people (including leading politicians) in the last year to justify inaction and point the finger at China amongst others.
• The task force members are pledging to take action themselves, including working with their 2m employees to help them reduce their total carbon footprint – at home and at work. Businesses are usually reluctant to use their influence any further than the factory gate.