Skip to main content icon/video/no-internet
icon backReturn to Entries

World Business Council for Sustainable Development

THE WORLD BUSINESS Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD), based in Geneva, Switzerland, is a global association of businesses focused on market-oriented solutions to sustainable development and is appropriately structured along the lines of a chief executive officer (CEO)-led business. The WBCSD s mission statement asserts its purpose: “Our mission is to provide business leadership as a catalyst for change toward sustainable development, and to support the business license to operate, innovate and grow in a world increasingly shaped by sustainable development issues.” The WBCSD arose from ideas forwarded at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), also known as the Rio de Janeiro Earth Summit of 1992, where Swiss businessman Stephan Schmidheiny was appointed chief adviser for business and industry to the secretary general of the UNCED. Schmidheiny created a forum called Business Council for Sustainable Development that eventually published the book Changing Course, in which the phrase eco-effi-ciency—doing more with less—was first used. The WBCSD was constituted in its current form when it merged (1995) with the World Industry Council for the Environment.

The WBCSD has approximately 60 national and regional business councils and has its North America office in Washington, D.C. Only companies committed to sustainable development are invited, by the executive council, to join the association.

General Motors, DuPont, 3M, Deutsche Bank, Coca-Cola, Sony, Oracle, BP, and Royal Dutch/Shell are among approximately 200 member companies from 35 countries representing 20 industrial sectors. Members make their knowledge, experience, and some limited human resources available to the WBCSD and are asked to base their business development within the parameters of economic, social, and environmental sustain-ability. Member company CEOs act as executive council members, cochair working groups, and promote the objectives of the WBCSD within their companies.

Objectives of the Council

The council's objectives are to be a leading business advocate on sustainable development, participate in policy development to create the right framework conditions for business to make an effective contribution to sustainable human progress, develop and promote the business case for sustainable development, demonstrate the business contribution to sustainable development solutions and share leading-edge practices among members, and contribute to a sustainable future for developing nations and nations in transition. To achieve these objectives the WBCSD has four focus areas (FAs): energy and climate, development, the business role, and ecosystems.

The WBCSD initiated its Energy and Climate FA in 1999 by creating and promoting ways for business to prosper while being socially and environmentally conscious within a sustainable development framework that prepares business for the carbon-con-strained future necessary for the planet to counter anthropogenic (human-induced) global warming and climate change. This required innovation, education, and dialogue seeks to create an efficient approach to energy sustainability and climate change through changing and adapting policy frameworks, business plans and markets, advancing technologies, and the interaction between business, government, and economies regionally, nationally, and globally. One focus of this initiative was/is the large greenhouse gas (GHG) emitters (United States, China, India, and Russia). The WBCSD interacts with the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), the UNEPs Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), and the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, and also focuses on the development of a post-2012 flexible Kyoto mechanism. Energy and climate became the primary WBCSD FA in 2005.

...

  • Loading...
locked icon

Sign in to access this content

Get a 30 day FREE TRIAL

  • Watch videos from a variety of sources bringing classroom topics to life
  • Read modern, diverse business cases
  • Explore hundreds of books and reference titles

Read next

More like this

Sage Recommends

We found other relevant content for you on other Sage platforms.

close

Have you created a personal profile? Login or create a profile so that you can save clips, playlists and searches

close
close
close Signed In to profile You are signed in as:
close
Logged in Institution Institution