Source: World Economic Forum
URL: http://www.weforum.org/videos/forum-live-interview-jim-leape
Date: 24/01/2013
Event: WWF's Jim Leape talks about sustainability and climate change
Attribution: World Economic Forum
People:
Alan Murray: Welcome to Forum Live. I'm Alan Murray, with the Pew Research Center. I'm here with Jim Leape, who's Director General of the WWF, the global conservation organisation. And Jim, I want to start out by asking you - you know, we all come here, to this beautiful location in Davos, for insight. What's the biggest insight you've had since arriving here? What have you learned, that you didn't know before you got here?
Jim Leape: Well, I was in a session this morning that demonstrated to me that there are a growing number of big global companies who are actually getting quite seriously interested in how they make a difference for the future of the world's water resources. And these are companies that have stepped up to engage with civil society - with organisations like ours - and with governments, to actually be part of solving problems which are already stressing countries all over the world. And that's a big step.
Alan Murray: So these'll be people you'll follow up with -
Jim Leape: Oh no, these are people we'll be very actively engaged with, both here in Davos but also then beyond.
Alan Murray: Water development is one of your focusses, but only one, right? What are the main - what are the main issues that you're pushing here, this week, at Davos?
Jim Leape: Well, WWF is a global conservation organisation - our broader interest is sustainability, and there are several streams through Davos which are important to that. So one is water, another is climate change, of course - the transcendent threat to our future on this Earth. And so this has been an important place to engage companies and governments around that issue. But a third is the, sort of, broader sustainability agenda, as the UN looks at how it pulls countries together around this issue, how can we help make that happen.
Alan Murray: Let's talk about climate change, a little bit, because we've seen, over the last few years, clearly some dissipation of the global push to do something about climate change. Big change in the US last - this week, right? In the President's inaugural address -
Jim Leape [smiling]: Monday.
Alan Murray: - after not talking about climate change through the whole campaign, it was a big part of his inaugural address. Does that reflect something that's happening globally? Do you see momentum picking up again, to do something?
Jim Leape: Well, I think this has been actually quite - this has the potential to be quite a pivotal year, because this is a year in which the consequences of climate change became [sic] manifest in many different parts of the world.
Alan Murray: Extreme weather -
Jim Leape: Extreme weather. I mean, you see - just to take the US, I mean, the drought across much of the US, more than 80% of agricultural area in the US. The storms like Sandy are phenomena that bring home to people what climate change will mean for us. And you see the same thing, of course, happening in Australia, and in other parts of the world. And that, I think, has the potential to be a teachable moment, right?
Alan Murray: Yeah. You have a lot of political leaders in Davos, this week. Do you sense a change in the political dynamic, on this issue? Is there - you know, a lot of them feel burned by the last round, 2008, 2009 - they feel like they just tried, tried and tried, and didn't get the kind of agreement that they had hoped to get, out of the Kyoto process. Do you feel that that political dynamic is changing?
Jim Leape: I don't think it's yet changing. And I think President Obama's speech on Monday was a hopeful sign, that perhaps it is beginning to shift in the US, which has been one of the most difficult countries, politically, on this issue. But we're going to need to see much more, and I think a lot of what has to come out of discussions here is a commitment to use the coming year and use these extreme weather events as an opportunity to recast the debate and renew the debate.
Alan Murray: As you pointed out in talking about water, a lot of the people you have here are CEOs, leaders of big corporations. What sense of commitment do you hear from them about devoting their companies' resources to dealing with sustainability problems?
Jim Leape: Well, this is a dynamic which has actually changed quite a lot, for at least some sectors, over the last several years. Five or ten years ago, people talked about corporate social responsibility, and they meant mostly philanthropic commitments. But now you see a growing number of companies - especially, I would say, consumer-facing brands, like Walmart or Tesco or Unilever, or Coca Cola - who recognise that sustainability is actually a business issue, for a whole suite of reasons. Security of their supplies - they're standing with their consumers. And they are much more actively engaged, over the last few years, than we saw before. And really looking at, in many cases, looking at how they can make a difference on these issues.
Alan Murray: And can they make a difference? How important are corporate actors, in this equation?
Jim Leape: Oh, centrally important. So take Unilever, for example. You know, Unilever realised that they shouldn't just be looking at their own operations - they should look at their whole value chain. And much of the impact their business has is on what their suppliers do - to grow palm oil, for example, or how their customers use their products. The hot water it takes to wash your clothes. And so they've realised they can make a difference across that whole value chain, and other companies are looking similarly at that kind of scope. And if you get to that, then you've got companies who are in a position to really make a difference, in [sic] a level that matters.
Alan Murray: So, I have a friend who did some - a little bit of research at Stanford University, where he interviewed incoming freshmen about their commitment to the environment, and the numbers just went up and up and up. And then he also measured their electricity use in the dorms, and the numbers went up and up and up. [They laugh.] And we sort of - and that's a small scale version, kind of what we're seeing globally. People care about this, it's clear, they show their commitment in lots of different ways. But we live in a world of seven billion people, heading to nine or ten billion people, all of whom want to live the way we live in developed countries. The energy demands of those aspirations are huge. Are we making progress?
Jim Leape: So the trend lines are even worse than you suggest, right? Because well, this population is growing, our consumption per capita is growing much faster.
Alan Murray: Yes.
Jim Leape: Right. So we're running up against exactly this. And it's - no, so we are not yet bending the curves, right? Back down to what would be sustainable. Our analysis with partners shows that we're currently using 50% more resources than the Earth can supply. And by 2050 that will be three times than the Earth can supply, and that's of course, intrinsically, by definition, not sustainable. To come back to the discussions here, you know, one of the interesting opportunities, I think, is for companies - consumer companies - to be engaged with their customers, to actually help them make better choices. And that's something you see companies beginning to do, recognise that they're there at the point of sale and they can actually provide products that allow customers to make better choices.
Alan Murray: I want to come back to that phrase you used about "what the Earth can supply" because there is a group of people here - I know some of them and I've talked to some of them - who, while they recognise there is a problem, think that the answer to the problem is solution on the energy side or on the - well, a variety of technology, excuse me, technology on the energy side - a variety of technology solutions. That in fact the Earth can supply much more energy, much more food than it currently does, if we simply harness the right technologies. How do you feel about that approach to the issue?
Jim Leape: So... No, no, I think that you can take any one of these problems and the answer is of course they're going to require multiple solutions. So if you take energy, we need to shift to renewable sources of energy, and part of what makes that possible is using energy much more efficiently. So that the total we have to produce is less, and therefore technologically more feasible, right? Same in food - we're going to need to get more out of each hectare. We're also going to make sure - need to make sure that we waste less in the value chain, so more of the food we grow actually gets to the plate. And it's a combination of those kinds of strategies that will actually be necessary to crack what are a very daunting set of curves.
Alan Murray: And a final question for you - how important is what happens here at Davos each year in building the coalitions that you need to build, to do that. You keep coming back [Jim Leape smiles], so there must be some value to it.
Jim Leape: No, no - I mean, Davos has a unique place in the landscape, and it is a unique opportunity to be engaged both with government leaders and with corporate leaders around some of these issues. And one of the things the Forum has made a point of doing, over the last several years, is bringing sustainability issues more to the fore. And I think it is a chance to actually get some things going. It's not by any means the solution to everything, but it is an important opportunity to be a catalyst for some of these things.
Alan Murray: Jim Leape, WWF, thank you very much for being with us on Forum Live. We'll be back in just a minute.