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The New York Times (July 6, 2007: “In London’s Financial World, Carbon Trading Is the New Big Thing”) reported that within three years carbon dioxide trading has become very popular in London’s financial world. It noted that managing emissions has become one of the fastest-growing specialties in financial services, and companies are scrambling to find workers – their goal is a slice of a market now worth about $30 billion and that could grow to $1 trillion within a decade. More carbon was traded in London than in any other city – this is largely the result of a decision by European governments to start limiting the amounts that industries emit. Numerous investment banks are increasing the numbers of staff on their emission trading teams to keep up with this expanding market. Prospects for the industry are good, especially if the United States joins the Europeans in establishing a trading system.

Since carbon dioxide trading has become very popular in the London financial market and as a result companies are looking to expand their emission trading teams, we should continue to monitor this trend as it will likely spread to markets outside of London and become a big industry. It is evident that the financial world is finding environmental issues to be useful and important when evaluating businesses.

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Last week the Prince of Wales launched an   Accounting for Sustainability Initiative, which calls for the Chartered Accountants of the UK to figure out how to measure the value of the earth and its resources. The ultimate goal I suspect, although it has not been explicitly stated as such thus far, is that generally accepted accounting principals should eventually come to incorporate this information.
The site contains a report documenting the rationale and some early case studies, and one can subscribe to be kept updated. They seem to intend to keep the community of subscribers at large updated.  I wonder if the site will also be used to facilitate some two-way dialog so the business community at large can be involved in defining a practical approach.
HRH has tremendous convening power and it was on full display at the launch event.  In attendance were outgoing PM Tony Blair, BP’s Sir John Browne, the Bishop of London (who mentioned his efforts around an environmental investment strategy for the Church), and a panel with no fewer than a dozen heads of the UK’s most well-known and admired business, media and political entities.  The caliber was the UK equivalent of what we saw at the Initiative for Global Development kickoff in Washington, D.C. last June, of which little has since been heard other than fundraising requests.   I am more optimistic however that the Prince’s initiative will yield substance, knowing who is behind it.