Climate World Cup

Right now 16 Nordic companies are competing about being the best in keeping their climate promises in the Climate World Cup. The game began on March 9th and the following five weeks they fight against each other in different pools, divided by industry - energy, design, food and transportation. You play the role as judge of the game with the power to give the score, a red or yellow card for the companies’ visions and actions for the climate.

High score or red card
All the companies in the Climate Wold Cup are global players, though based in Scandinavia, they are all represented at the global market and are all contributing to global warming. Currently the Swedes are named in both top and bottom of the design category, with high score to H&M and the red card to IKEA, which apparently has several loose bolts in their climate image. In the category of energy there were no real high scores, Danish Maersk Oil managed a few points and the Norwegian Statoil became the absolute bottom scraper.

’Greenwashers’ will be punished
After all the participating ‘judges’ in the Climate World Cup have given their answer in a pool, the points are being converted into two grades for each company: One for climate visions and goals - and one for actual climate actions. The worst character is 1, and the best is 5. Actions are more important than promises, therefore efforts counts more than empty promises. If there is 'greenwashing', i.e. where the nature of the company’s promises is higher than the grade for its efforts, the difference will be deducted from the overall grade.

The watchdog DanWatch sets the rules
Climate World Cup is organised by the Danish NGO DanWatch and Roskilde Festival, which provides tickets for the festival among the most industrious judging people. The purpose of the Climate World Cup is to encourage business to take action on the climate. The industries account for a large part of our CO2 emissions and therefore have a special responsibility.

A Climate World Cup, involving users and literally bringing well-known companies in play, is a both informative and entertaining way to make business related climate issues pertinent. Participating ‘judges’ must assess for themselves which is hot air and which is substantial in the visions and actions for the climate. It is not always easy to tell, but DanWatch helps revealing facts.

DanWatch is a so-called 'Watch Dog', keeping a critical eye on Danish companies and their way of acting in relation to national and international standards for social responsibility. The aim is not to name and shame as such, but to raise awareness and visibility about the complex area that sustainable business industry is, and points out problems there may be. "In the context of NGOs, we play the part as 'bad-cop', a critical media that create changes through awareness. We do investigative journalism and putting pressure on the companies that exceed international law,"says Head of DanWatch Secretariat Anne Skjerning.

Common standards are the way to future climate top scorer
Anne Skjerning says: "We will not solve all the climate problems with corporate goodwill alone, because not all companies are rewarded for their good ethics, if we are being frank. There are many previous examples of companies fighting against regulation, but I think that in the future we will see that businesses are proactive players in putting pressure on states to take more responsibility. Common standards and regulations creates more equal circumstances for everybody, which is currently the not case and only some are acting sustainably. "

I ask if she thinks that companies will become that responsible, that they can make DanWatch unemployed: "I think there is a long way to go, just to get an overview of the various branches is a great challenge, so no, I can not imagine that we will be unemployed for a long time," Anne Skjerning concludes.

See interview with Head of DanWatch Secretariat Anne Skjerning (in Danish only).