The Prince of Wales’s Sustainable Markets Initiative (SMI) has today announced the ‘Terra Carta’ – a charter providing a green roadmap for business helping to point it towards more sustainable operations and thinking.
A year on from Prince Charles unveiling the SMI at Davos, the new plan aims to “harness the power of nature combined with the transformative power, innovation and resources of the private sector” to help speed up industry’s move to net zero carbon emissions by 2050, and hopefully sooner, as set out in the Paris Agreement.
The heir to the British throne and the SMI want businesses to sign up and commit to ten actions included in the charter, which puts the green agenda at the heart of economic growth and pandemic recovery in the coming years.
Actions include “making a sustainable future the growth story of our time”, and creating and accelerating sustainable industries, businesses, products, services and supply chains while working within and across industries to leapfrog and scale climate and nature-positive solutions. The full charter can be read here.
In his foreword, introducing the charter, Prince Charles argued it is critical to “accelerate and mainstream sustainability into every aspect of our economy”.
“To move forward, there must be a centre of gravity to catalyse such a monumental effort, and to mobilise the resources and incentives required,” he wrote.
“Over the past year, through my SMI, I have convened leaders from across industries and almost every sector, and challenged them to identify ways to set our planet on a fundamentally more sustainable trajectory. Together, these outstanding business leaders have seized this opportunity to develop a charter of ambitious, but practical action.”
He concluded the foreword by calling on CEOs from around the world “to engage and play their part in leading the global transition”.
The Terra Carta aims to raise $10 billion to invest in nature by 2022 through the newly created Natural Capital Investment Alliance. In its statement of intent, the charter calls for voluntary commitments from industry such as “leveraging consumer and shareholder demand to drive sustainable transition and investment within the private sector”.
Unilever, HSBC, and EY are among the companies already publicly supporting the Terra Carta, which was unveiled before the One Planet summit in Paris.
Last year, Prince Charles urged businesses to appoint chief sustainability officers as part of the drive towards making operations greener and helping the corporate world meet international environmental targets.
[Image credit: Green Retail World]
