Program to train corporate directors on climate change

New Haven, Conn. — Yale University, along with two other leading U.S. organizations, has announced a unique collaborative effort to educate hundreds of independent corporate board members about the potential liabilities and strategic business opportunities that global climate change can create for companies.

“Climate change is no longer the purview of scientists only,” said Gus Speth, dean of the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies. “The widespread ramifications of unchecked climate change require that more leaders in our society understand its implications.” The announcement was made at a plenary session of the 2006 annual meeting of the Clinton Global Initiative hosted in New York this week by former President Bill Clinton.

The collaboration draws together institutions with complementary expertise in the area of climate change: Marsh, the world’s leading risk and insurance services firm; Yale University, one of the nation’s leading academic institutions, and Ceres, the nation’s largest coalition of investors and environmental groups working with companies on environmental and social issues.


Initial training of more than 200 independent U.S. board members of Fortune 1000 companies will begin this winter through a newly created curriculum — the Sustainable Governance Forum. The training sessions will be offered across the country through September 2008.

page 49…Packaging Climate change as an energy issue: …Frustrated by the inability of climate change to break through as an urgent public concern, many believe it is best to finally admit that the issue cannot stand on its own. Climate change can be packaged with other issues that have generated more public concern to date