27 April 2007
	Joint effort on carbon Jonathon Hanks, University of Cape Town Graduate School of Business

Well done for making corporate environmentalism a cover story (April 13). Echoing your critical assessment of the local business response, the same might be said of the SA business media, most of which have been slow in appreciating the significant opportunities for value creation presented by the environment. While welcoming your article, I question your assessment that the local retail sector has been leading the way on climate issues. Many in the mining and resource sector have been providing audited accounts of their greenhouse gas emissions for some years now (no local retailer has yet done so), as well as identifying and seizing opportunities presented for instance by the Clean Development Mechanism. It is a pity that you failed to mention the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) that is being launched this year in SA. Established in 2003, the CDP serves as the secretariat for the world's largest institutional investor collaboration on the business implications of climate change, and its website provides the largest registry of corporate greenhouse gas emissions in the world. The CDP has this year extended its coverage to include the JSE top 40. The CDP was brought to SA at the initiative of Incite Sustainability, and is managed locally by the National Business Initiative with sponsorship from ABN Amro, Fraters Asset Management, First South Macquarie and Genesis Analytics. The company responses to the CDP questionnaire will be analysed for the first SA CDP report, which will be launched in October. This will provide a valuable resource for SA investors and financial institutions.