Yale Bulletin and Calendar

September 29, 2006|Volume 35, Number 4


BULLETIN HOME

VISITING ON CAMPUS

CALENDAR OF EVENTS

IN THE NEWS

BULLETIN BOARD

CLASSIFIED ADS


SEARCH ARCHIVES

DEADLINES

DOWNLOAD FORMS

BULLETIN STAFF


PUBLIC AFFAIRS HOME

NEWS RELEASES

E-MAIL US


YALE HOME PAGE


Program will educate corporate leaders
about implications of climate change

Yale and two other leading U.S. organizations are launching a collaborative effort to educate hundreds of independent corporate board members about the potential liabilities and strategic business opportunities that global climate change can create for companies.

"Climate change is no longer the purview of scientists only," says Gus Speth, dean of the School of Forestry & Environmental Studies (F&ES). "The widespread ramifications of unchecked climate change require that more leaders in our society understand its implications." The initiative was announced at a plenary session of the 2006 annual meeting of the Clinton Global Initiative hosted in New York earlier this month by former President Bill Clinton.

The collaboration draws together institutions with complementary expertise in the area of climate change: Marsh, the world's leading risk and insurance services firm; Yale, one of the nation's leading academic institutions; and Ceres, the nation's largest coalition of investors and environmental groups working with companies on environmental and social issues.

"Corporate directors are going to need a strategic and analytical underpinning to navigate the transformations that climate change will require in their businesses in the coming years," says Speth. "These changes offer great economic opportunity to those directors who act in a timely way. As a result of its combined academic, non-governmental and corporate leadership, our new initiative will be well positioned to deliver needed training and support to participating corporations."

Initial training of more than 200 independent U.S. board members of Fortune 1000 companies will begin this winter through a newly created curriculum: the Sustainable Governance Forum. The training sessions will be offered across the country through September 2008. Marsh, Yale and Ceres are combining their intellectual capital and research to develop the training with a $250,000 contribution by Marsh being used to produce the materials. Courses and materials have been designed to provide insights into practical financial, legal, business and investor perspectives about the effects of climate change on corporations.

Brian Storms, chair and chief executive officer of Marsh, says, "Increasingly, corporate leaders are asking us to help them better understand their total spectrum of risk, and how it affects their overall business strategies." While many companies focus on avoiding the liabilities related to climate change, Storms believes there are as many opportunities as risks associated with climate change. "Those companies that understand true enterprise risk will be the ones that seize upon the growth prospects that threats like climate change create," he says. "As more companies have begun to understand this and seek advice, we're seeing increased business."

Ceres President Mindy Lubber says, "This training program will prepare corporate directors for what is perhaps the biggest challenge companies will face in the 21st century. Major investors are increasingly demanding that companies sharpen their focus on the impacts from climate change, whether from new regulations, physical changes or growing global demand for low-carbon technologies. This program will help ensure that independent directors ask the tough, smart questions of the companies they oversee."

Lubber, who also directs the $3 trillion Investor Network on Climate Risk, says focusing on climate is the first step in educating corporate directors on a broad array of environmental and social issues businesses will face in the coming years. "As competition for business resources intensifies -- from materials to labor, water to oil -- this program will work to help board members address these challenges."

The concept for the new collaboration took shape at a high-level conference on climate change hosted in late 2005 by F&ES. The school has long been committed to advancing rigorous science on climate change and has recently undertaken new initiatives to disseminate this science to major decision makers, including the corporate directors addressed by this new collaboration. The full program of action from Yale is described in a recently published book by Dan Abbasi, associate dean of F&ES, titled "Americans and Climate Change: Closing the Gap Between Science and Action." For information on the F&ES project on climate change, visit http://environment.yale.edu/climate/.


T H I SW E E K ' SS T O R I E S

University launches 'Yale Tomorrow' campaign

Gift of $50 million to create Greenberg Yale-China Initiative

Greenberg: 'Flexibility' will be key Yale asset in China

Program will educate corporate leaders about . . . climate change

V.P. and union president co-chairing Yale-United Way Campaign

This year's 'Science Saturdays' for children celebrates women scientists

Alumnus Robert Burger is named an assistant provost

MEDICAL CENTER NEWS

More Yale-related MacArthur Fellows

Yale's Endowment earns 22.9% in the past fiscal year

Erin Lavik and Tarek Fahmy win biomedical engineering awards

Are we alone? 'Alien Earths' explores scientists' quest to find out

Exhibit explores connections between art and music in different period

Yale novelists, poets and playwrights will read from their works

Works by photojournalists in Iraq on view at ISM

Study finds affirmation exercise boosts minority . . .

Conference to explore ways to increase diversity in higher education

Traveling Margaret Mead Film & Video Festival comes to campus

Ancient coins will be showcased in 'The Romans in Asia' symposium

Two noted scientists serving as visiting scholars . . .

Five alumni to be honored with Wilbur Lucius Cross Medals

Five junior faculty members are honored by The MacMillan Center . . .

Memorial service for Jaroslav Pelikan

University of Michigan professor wins Yale's Douglass Prize

Campus Notes


Bulletin Home|Visiting on Campus|Calendar of Events|In the News

Bulletin Board|Classified Ads|Search Archives|Deadlines

Bulletin Staff|Public Affairs|News Releases| E-Mail Us|Yale Home