LONDON (AFP) — Britain's top employers' organisation pledged Monday to help combat climate change, saying the issue was an urgent priority for business, government and consumers alike.
The Confederation of British Industry (CBI) has placed global warming at the heart of its agenda at the start of its annual two-day conference in London.
Reporting the findings of its climate change task force, the CBI called Monday for fundamental change in British business and issued a series of pledges to help companies adopt greener practices.
"Firms will have fundamentally to change their business models to meet consumers' and society's needs in an era of climate change," it said.
One key pledge was to "develop new products and services that will empower households to halve their emissions by 2020."
Another vow was to save an extra one million tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions among the employees of task force members within the next three years.
CBI Director-general Richard Lambert added: "This report makes clear that in the future, businesses will have to be green to grow."
The task force comprises 18 chairmen and chief executives from well-known companies which employ two million people in total. They include supermarket giant Tesco, energy majors BP and Royal Dutch Shell and steelmaker Corus.
"Today the CBI task force has demonstrated its commitment to tackling climate change," said chairman Ben Verwaayen, who is also chief executive of telecommunications group BT.
"This is a call to action to the wider business community whose support we need, an offer of partnership with government, and a commitment to empower consumers.
"They are key to any solution because of their power to demand environmentally friendly goods, and their influence on government as voters."
Meanwhile, the CBI has questioned the British government's ambitious targets to slash the country's carbon emissions by between 26 percent and 32 percent by 2020, and 60 percent by 2050.
"The UK's carbon reduction targets for 2020 are likely to be missed but that 2050 goal, whilst stretching, can be achieved at a manageable cost -- provided a greater sense of urgency is now adopted," it said citing analysis commissioned by consultants McKinsey.
The CBI is Britain's foremost business lobby group with 240,000 member companies, including 80 percent of firms listed on London's prestigious FTSE 100 shares index.
Aside from the environment, the 2007 conference will also focus on controversial taxation plans -- but the event threatens to be overshadowed by global economic worries and political tensions.
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