Kingfisher joins business leaders in call for tough climate change targets

05.10.09

Home improvement giant Kingfisher, has joined BioRegional and more than 500 other businesses in a call for robust climate change targets at December's international climate change negotiations in Copenhagen.

Kingfisher (parent company of B&Q who is in a three year sustainability partnership with BioRegional) said:
At Kingfisher we recognise the threat posed to communities and businesses alike by climate change. We now need governments around the world to act. Kingfisher has therefore signed up to the Copenhagen Communiqué on Climate Change which calls for an ambitious, robust and equitable international climate framework to be agreed at the forthcoming negotiations in December 2009.

Kingfisher's Chief Executive, Ian Cheshire, recently appeared on the BBC's World Business Report to highlight the coalition's call for a ‘real deal' on climate change.

We believe a comprehensive international framework to facilitate a coordinated response to climate change is undoubtedly in the long-term interests of the business community. We believe that taking action now on climate change will be less costly and disruptive than waiting until it is too late.

The Communiqué is being led by the Corporate Leaders' Group on Climate Change, of which Kingfisher is a member. As with the Bali and Poznan Communiqués, published ahead of the UN climate meetings in 2007 and 2008, we aim to build momentum in the run up to the negotiations proper.

The coalition is seeking to secure the support of over 500 of the world's largest companies for The Copenhagen Communiqué. Kingfisher's Chief Executive, Ian Cheshire, has already contacted the Group's major suppliers to encourage them to sign. We urge other companies to join us and follow suit.

Kingfisher's businesses are already taking action to cut their CO2 emissions. For example, B&Q UK's long-term ambition is to achieve a 90% reduction in direct carbon emissions by 2023, as part of its strategy to become a One Planet Living® business. It aims for all new stores to be ‘zero carbon' from 2012 and for all existing stores to be ‘zero carbon' by 2023. In early 2009, B&Q UK opened its greenest-ever store in New Malden, Surrey, which includes the largest building-mounted wind turbine in the country.

Further information: see www.copenhagencommunique.com

See the climate change section on Kingfisher's web site for more about what the company is doing to reduce its carbon footprint.