Environmental Tracking quotes
"I am of course delighted that Environmental Tracking is an idea developed by a group based at the LSE. The LSE has never been frightened of new ideas and it is highly appropriate that the potential of Environmental Tracking should first be considered here in the Hong Kong Theatre."
- Lord Professor Anthony Giddens, speaking as Director of the LSE at the first Environmental Tracking conference.
"Asher backs new ranking" - The efinancial news
"We need some sensible ground rules for ethical investment. I am hoping that this is a practical way of making companies realise that people have concerns about companies disturbing the environment and that they could do better."
- Bernard Asher, former Chairman, HSBC Investment Bank.
"Environmental Tracking is a way of restoring power to ordinary people and changing the attitude of government and large companies."
- Tony Juniper, former Director, Friends of the Earth.
"It should generally be accepted that in operating a business there should be no net transfer of costs to future generations. Ethics may even have a part to play in something so basic as the market mechanism and we should look at ideas such as the international and voluntary Environmental Tracking eco-finance concept. We need to find ways to help those in business who want to make it more ethically responsible environmentally and socially."
- Dr Arthur Dahl, speaking as Deputy Director of UNEP.
"I believe that here is a tool that could be as sharp as a Samurai's sword, even if it is kept away in its sheath much of the time."
- Professor Herbert Girardet, Chairman Schumacher Society, Author and Film Maker, former UN Global 500 Award Winner, writing in the foreword to the original Environmental Tracking publication.
"I can see how these Carbon Indexes could become a useful part of the way in which people track corporate performance."
- Jonathon Porritt, Former head of UK Sustainable Development Commission, Advisor to HRH PRINCE OF WALES.
"Congratulations. It's important work."
- Noam Chomsky, Author, Senior Lecturer at MIT.
"We can debate the details, but there should be no debate that publicising the environmental rankings of companies is a valuable tool for change."
- Paul Klemperer, FBA, Edgeworth Professor of Economics, University of Oxford.
"Innovative new products like this are exactly what is needed to support the transition to a low carbon economy. It's a great product and deserves to succeed."
- Emily Farnworth, Senior Advisor - Finance Sector, The Climate Group.
Noteworthy historical quotes
"No generation has a freehold on the earth. All we have is a life tenancy-with a full repairing lease"
- Margaret Thatcher speaking in October 1988, as UK Prime Minister.
"We underestimated the risks... we underestimated the damage associated with temperature increases... and we underestimated the probabilities of temperature increases...The damage risks are bigger than I would have argued. Things like the damage associated with a 5 degree temperature increase are enormous. We can't be precise about what it would be like but you can say it would be a transformation."
- Lord Stern, former chief economist at the World Bank, speaking in April 2008 to the Financial Times, a year and a half after his seminal 2006 UK Government Climate Change Review.
In the intervening period
"Tinkering with the problem is not enough. What is required is not so much evolution as revolution."
- The RT Hon Michael Meacher speaking in June 2003 to Investors as UK Minister for the Environment, shortly before losing his cabinet position for being too radical in his thinking!
"The more a strategy depends on short term predictions, the closer it is to gambling. The more a strategy depends on longer term predictions, the closer it is to is to investing"
- "Environmental Tracking, Can Investment Revolution Prevent Ecological Catastrophe", published June 1997.
And nearly a century and a half ago...
"Is there not the earth itself, its forests and waters, above and below the surface. These are the inheritance of the human race...What rights, and under what conditions, a person shall be allowed to exercise over any portion of this common inheritance cannot be left undecided. No function of Government is less optional than the regulation of these things, or more completely involved in the idea of a civilised society."
- John Stewart Mill, from his "Principles of Political Economy", published in 1864
More recently and randomly
"No ET. No Comment..."
- Unattributed, but based on the famous Financial Times slogan. And a similar unattributed quote...
"ET meets FT?"... watch this space!