Appetite for change - Accountancy Nieuws

As demonstrated previously, the business community isready for, and supportive of, government action. Whenenvironmental policies are unstable and unclear, businesseslook to governments for leadership. Speaking at the climatechange meeting in Copenhagen, JohnsonDiversey’s ChairmanCurt Johnson said, “Once industry adopts a mindset thatequates greenhouse gas emissions with waste, we’ll makeprogress in ways and to an extent that we have never seenbefore. This will be good for the planet and good for ourbusinesses. But we must act and we must act now.” 1 A largemajority of business executives believe that governmentsshould help lead the behavioural changes that will both guideand encourage such action.Figure 4Just under half think government should take the lead on changeTotal (%)27 10 18 44UK 14 8 10 68France 26 4 24 44Germany50 28 2 20Spain 14 18 11 57Sweden27 13 60Netherlands 18 11 29 43Seventy one per cent of businesses believe governments,either alone or in cooperation with the private sector andindividuals, should provide leadership (see fig. 4). Executivesin the UK and China are most likely to say governmentsalone should have primary responsibility for leading change.However, even in the US and South Africa, where more thanone third of companies believe the market alone should lead,the majority of business leaders still feel the government mustplay the leading role.Czech RepublicCanadaUSARussiaBrazilChinaIndia21 11 14 5424 10 6 6021 14 38 2330 7 6344 20 16 2016 16 6834 12 22 30Many organisations across the world already expect tochange the way they conduct business in the next two tothree years, as a result of climate change (see fig. 7 on page17). Business leaders in Brazil, India, China and Russiaare more likely to be sceptical that changes are imminent.Russian business executives are most likely to expect noimpact from climate change in the next few years.South AfricaAustraliaA combination30 37 3328 15 58IndividualsBusiness (the market)Who do you think should have primary responsibility for leading behaviouralchange in relation to climate change? Base: Total (654)Government1Press Release, WWF, Dec 13, 2009 downloaded from www.worldwildlife.org 15 December 2009Appetite for change. PricewaterhouseCoopers. 13