This was the theme for the 2009 Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) launch event held in Cape Town preceding the United Nations Environment Programme Finance Initiative (UNEP-FI), an important global gathering geared towards designing new ways to finance the challenge of climate change.

The CDP 2009 report demonstrates steadfast commitment by South African corporations to addressing climate change despite the recent economic downturn. This is evident from the 68% carbon disclosure level this year compared with last year's 59%. This achievement was commended by the Minister of Water and Environmental Affairs, Buyelwa Sonjica in her foreword - "The top 100 JSE listed companies must be highly commended for taking the lead to disclose their carbon footprint and plans to disclose their carbon footprint and plans to reduce it, thereby contributing to mitigating climate change".

Present at the launch was the Joanne Yawitch, the Deputy Director General of the Department of Water and Environmental Affairs, who briefly shared with the audience South Africa's commitment to ensuring a new global deal is reached in Copenhagen later this year. She emphasized that it is important that a strong global deal to address climate change emerges from Copenhagen since any delays will exacerbate the vulnerability of Africa as a continent.

Valerie Geen, National Business Initiative (NBI) Director of Climate and Energy said: "While this year's report has clearly demonstrated progress made by leading companies in appreciating the significance of climate change in terms of its environmental, economic social impacts, there is still evidence that companies are at different levels of awareness and engagement with what climate change means for their business. This can only be fully appreciated if the issue is considered against the backdrop of international and national positions and is viewed through an integrated business strategy that acknowledges climate change as it relates to issues such as improved efficiency, changing consumption patterns, new business opportunities and models, appropriate skills and long term projections. She also thanked sponsors for the CDP 2009 which included KPMG (main sponsor), Webber Wentzel and Element Investment Managers (previously Frater Asset Management). She also commended companies for remaining resolute to addressing climate change under the current economic circumstances.

Sue Howells, Head of CDP London commended South Africa for leading Brazil, Russia, India and China in terms of numbers and for taking the fifth position globally.

The quality of reporting by SA companies has improved in the CDP 2009 across all key areas that include risks and opportunities due to climate change, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and energy use, GHG reduction targets and activities and finally climate change governance. Other highlights in the report include:

• 87% of responding companies disclosed their GHG emissions compared with 77% in CDP 2008
• Equally important is that more companies have verified their data this year (24) compared with last year (13)
• 21 companies have GHG emissions targets this year while 11 are still defining targets although the report cautions that some targets could be more ambitious
• More companies are integrating climate change in their governance activities.

The CDP 2009 report listed the top 16 companies recognized through the Carbon Disclosure Leadership Index and only the top five received awards in recognition of their leadership in disclosure. The top five companies in order of leadership were:

• Nedbank
• Bidvest Group and Woolworths
• BHP Billiton
• Sappi
• Gold Fields

However, for the first time on a pilot basis companies were scored on performance and the top five were Massmart Holdings, Pick n Pay, SABMiller, Woolworths and Sasol.

Jonathon Hanks of Incite Sustainability, the report writers, cautioned that the nature of some targets set by the reporting companies is ambitious and does not match the "required by science" scenario as presented in the Long Term Mitigation Scenarios for South Africa. Furthermore, in addressing this year's theme at the launch, Hanks shared some insights on how the business response strategy to climate change could be improved in the future. He concluded that the following set of values will have to be properly integrated in business strategies to rise up to the scale of the challenge. He argued that a more visionary form of business leadership was required to appreciate the gravity of a challenge which was fast becoming the next global force to impact on economies and social development. Such leadership also required a systems thinking approach (an ability to anticipate the unknowns), courage (that includes willingness to implement new ideas and challenge existing mindsets), charismatic and inspirational leadership, integrity that allows a new openness to opportunities for collaboration and a high level of emotional intelligence to manage change and evolution of business models.

The launch event which also included a panel discussion, highlighted the role and need for investors, shareholders and pension fund managers to also adopt a long term approach to climate change that must take cognizance of the risks and opportunities and forge linkages with Economic, Social and Governance (ESG) principles of investment. John Oliphant, an executive at the Government Pension Fund which is also a signatory investor to the CDP and member of the Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI) presented an example of their own assessment of how climate change could impact on the poor given that pensioners on the lower income levels were spending 70% of their money on food. With projections of climate change impacting on food security and water scarcity, this information was particularly poignant for demonstrating South Africa's vulnerability.

In his closing remarks, Barney Kgope, Climate Change Programme Manager for the NBI concluded that the CDP 2009 report is very rich with information waiting to be mined by business at large and other interested parties. Beyond simply reading the data it was incumbent on everyone to assess the implications of what the data meant for the sustainability of their business, government's own role in creating an appropriate legislative and enabling environment and an innovative thinking required to provide new solutions. He also acknowledged that business South Africa remains in the lead since South Africa is the only CDP partner throughout Africa. The latest report can be downloaded from NBI website.