Re|Source 2012: Day Two

The second and final day of Re|Source 2012 saw the keynote speech delivered by President Bill Clinton where he called on people not to be disheartened by the lack of decisive change at a global level on environmental issues  and said that small steps could create the foundation for more radical action in the future.

President Clinton  also outlined how  economies of the world’s biggest economies such as the United States  would recover faster from the current economic crisis if more effort was made to use resources sustainably and efficiently. His final call was for a revaluation in how we see commodities and by calling for common good to outweigh private gain.

President Bill Clinton. Taken by John Cairns.

Day two of Re|Source 2012  started with Jochen Zeitz, executive chairman of Puma, explaining why Puma were active in managing their resources and how they were managing their supply chains. He explained that for Puma this went much further than just environmentalism and that  the company will be deciding in the next two months whether it will go ahead with producing a social P&L account.

Lord Mandelson, speaking on issue of subsidies, said that they were vital for some countries and could do a lot of good but  no subsidy should last forever because most subsidies start with good intentions but then can have unintended negative consequences later on.

On the role of Government, David Miliband said that he didn’t think mandatory reporting for businesses would lead to a real step change in action and considered that the most important thing a government could do was to put a proper price on carbon to change behaviours and drive efficiency.