The World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) is a global association of some 200 companies dealing exclusively with business and sustainable development, led by their chief executives. The Council provides a platform for companies to explore sustainable development, share knowledge, experiences and best practices, and to advocate business positions on these issues in a variety of forums, working with governments, non-governmental and intergovernmental organisations. Members are drawn from more than 35 countries and 20 major industrial sectors. Eskom became a member of the WBCSD soon after its inception in 1995. In addition, our chief executive is a member of the executive committee of the WBCSD. The WBCSD's electric utility sector project was started in early 2000 by industry leaders determined to take stock of some of the key sustainable development issues and challenges facing the electricity industry. This sector project brings together 10 leading utilities from around the world to develop a deeper understanding of these challenges and explore policy needs and the potential business contribution to solutions. Eskom is the co-chair of this project.

Over the last few years members of the workgroup have channeled their expertise into more advanced research on energy futures and dialogues on best practices in the sector. Last year the group produced ground-breaking work by way of an industry leading report on climate change.

'Powering a Sustainable Future: Policies and measures to make it happen' (and its technology solution booklet 'Powering Sustainable Solutions: Policies and measures') highlights the existence of many low-carbon solutions. The development and deployment of these policies and measures, at a sufficient scale to reduce the carbon intensity of electricity production and increase consumption efficiency, will not occur without the right regulatory and market frameworks. Given that the sector is currently responsible for about 41% of global energy related CO₂ emissions, these frameworks will be critical to combating climate change during the first half of this century.

A key message from the document is that consistent and integrated policy and regulatory measures must underpin and support investment in low carbon technologies, both on the demand- and supply- sides. However, a one size fits all approach will fail and a combination of complementary mechanisms must be used. Specific policies will be necessary to drive the implementation of currently available technologies, while large-scale multi-country research and development efforts are required for those future solutions that currently face technological or commercial barriers to deployment. To enable their effective implementation, significant infrastructure investments will be required.

The report can be downloaded from: www.wbcsd.org