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The Impact Of Development Of The Sustainable Business Agenda In Relation To ...

Climate change and its impacts fuel a growing consensus among governments and large corporations to mitigate said impacts. This paper presents the approach taken by IBM in the development of its sustainable business agenda and evaluates the influence of such business agenda in terms of available financial data and its corporate performance.

In the context of climate change, IBM's main goal is to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases and perflourocompounds through conservation projects implemented in its worldwide corporate offices and in its semiconductor manufacturing sites a move that proved to be a sound business strategy in the long run.Introduction

The adverse effects of climate change on the environment, the economy and the society as a whole cannot be undermined. These adverse effects have been established in various scientific and economic studies and therefore require the participation of government and non-government institutions and corporations for effective mitigation. Large corporations such as IBM subscribe to environmental protection as part of its corporate responsibility, by developing sustainable business agenda.

In this context, this paper tries to evaluate the impacts of IBM's development of its sustainable business agenda by explicating the approach taken by IBM. This paper will first describe IBM's sustainable business agenda in terms of greenhouse gas and perflourocompound emissions reduction. It will then discuss the specific approach taken by IBM to facilitate the reduction in emissions of both greenhouse gases and perflourocompounds. Next, it will evaluate the impacts of IBM's sustainable business agenda. Finally, it will present IBM's future emissions reduction targets.

Literature Review

Climate change pertains to the gradual increase in the mean annual temperature of the earth's lower atmosphere, as a result of global warming due to both natural and anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide (CO2 ), methane (CH4), CFCs and nitrous oxide (N2O), in the atmosphere, (Bulkeley & Betsill, 2003, p. 1; "Global Warming," 2004, p. 19299; Fleagle, 1994, p. 16). The global warming phenomenon is also referred to as the ‘enhanced greenhouse effect', whereby the incoming radiant energy outbalances the outgoing energy; due to the absorption of long wave infra-red radiation by the greenhouse gases, resulting to increased temperatures in the lower atmosphere, (Splash, 2002, p. 25) .The anthropogenic causes of climate change due to global warming include combustion of fossil fuels, rampant deforestation; and agricultural intensification ("Global Warming," 2004, p. 19299; Campbell & Reece, 2004, p. 1219; Miller & Tyler, 1999; Fleagle, 1994 ).


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