Pledge Rundown: Companies Pull Out Checkbooks At Clinton Global Initiative

September 28, 2007

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U.S. Businesses have stepped forward with big pledges at the Clinton Global Initiative.

Standard Chartered Bank, TreeHugger reports, has pledged $8-to-10 billion over five years to renewable-energy projects – wind, hydro, geothermal, solar, biomass, and so on – in Asia, Africa, and the Middle East.

Florida Power and Light said it would spend 2.4 billion dollars over five years to build solar-energy plants in Florida and launch a public information campaign on renewable energy, reports AFP. The company also said it would reduce carbon-dioxide emissions by more than two million tons in the same period.

Wal-Mart said it would sell only concentrated detergents in the liquid-laundry detergent category, beginning in May 2008, in its US stores.

Coca-Cola will plant 3.3 million trees in the Amazon forest at a cost of 13.5 million dollars.

Rainforest Alliance, Domtar, Time, and Gibson Guitar Corp. will spend 480 million dollars over five years to promote better forest management in 60 countries.

Pratt pledged up to $1 billion over the next decade to build several “clean” plants, The Herald Sun reports.

Procter & Gamble will spend $20 million to provide water purification tablets to disadvantaged populations.

Dow Chemical will furnish equipment to deliver drinking-quality water to some 11 million people in India.

Partnering with the Clinton Foundation, who will help bring key stakeholders together, Frank Giustra and a number of partners have pledged in excess of $300 million to create a coalition of mining industry and non-industry actors to assist local leaders in Latin America address social, economic and environmental issues.

Working with the Alliance for Climate Protection, Mark Buell & Susie Tompkins Buell will develop a $5 million project to continue moving the USA past a ‘tipping point’ beyond which the majority of leaders in both major political parties and all sectors of civil society compete to offer genuinely effective proposals, policies, and programs that reduce emissions of CO2 and other heat-trapping gases.

Led by Duke Energy, Consolidated Edison, Edison International, Great Plains Energy, Pepco Holdings, PNM Resources, Sierra Pacific Resources and Xcel Energy, utilities collectively serving nearly 20 million customers in 22 states, are joining together in an effort to help make America more energy efficient. With the right regulatory reforms, they pledge to increase their collective investment in energy efficiency. These reforms will lead to the elimination of 30 million tons of green house gas emissions per year-the equivalent of taking 6 million cars off the road. With the Edison Electric Institute, the companies will also create an Institute for Electric Efficiency, enabling them to share and promote best practices in energy efficiency.

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