EDITOR’S NOTE: News Corp., The Post’s corporate parent, employs some 47,000 people on five continents. Yesterday, Chairman and CEO Rupert Murdoch announced the company’s dramatic plans to become fully carbon-neutral by 2010. Below are some of his remarks to News Corp. employees explaining why, and how, we’ll do it – and that this is only the start.
I GREW up in Melbourne, Australia; the last few months and years have brought some changes there:
In Melbourne, 2006 was the 10th straight year with below-average rain fall. And 2005 was the hottest year on record throughout Australia. Australia is suffering its worst drought in 100 years.
Now, I realize we can’t take just one year in one city or even one continent as proof that something unusual is happening. And I am no scientist. But there are signs around the world, and I do know how to assess a risk.
Climate change poses clear, catastrophic threats. We may not agree on the extent, but we certainly can’t afford the risk of inaction.
We must transform the way we use energy – and not only because of climate change. When I look around the world today, I see continued dependence on oil from vulnerable regions – and oil money going to leaders of countries hostile to us.
More, our audiences – hundreds of millions of people – care about this issue. Three quarters of the American public believes climate change is a serious problem – and the numbers are higher in many other countries.
And, as many companies have already learned, acting on this issue is simply good business. Reducing our use of energy cuts costs. Inviting our employees to be active on this issue helps us recruit and retain the world’s best.
And for us, as a media company, this is a chance to deepen our relationships with our viewers, readers and Web users.
The initiative we’re launching today will involve every business, every function. We’re not a manufacturer or an airline, but we do use energy. Printing and publishing newspapers, producing films, broadcasting TV signals, operating 24-hour newsrooms: It all adds carbon to the atmosphere.
Our first step was to measure our emissions of greenhouse gases – our carbon footprint. Last year, it was 641,150 tons. This includes the electricity used in all our operations globally, and any fuels we burned.
We could make a difference just by holding our emissions steady as our businesses continue to grow. But that doesn’t seem to be enough: We want to go all the way to zero.
TODAY, I am announcing our intention to be carbon-neutral, across all our businesses, by 2010.
British Sky Broadcasting Ltd. [a News Corp. equity affiliate.] has already done this. When all of News Corp. becomes carbon-neutral, it will have the same impact as turning off the electricity in the city of London for five full days.
Our strategy: First, reduce our use of energy as much as possible. Then, switch to renewable sources of power where it makes economic sense. And, over time, as a last resort, offset the emissions we can’t avoid.
This will take time, but we have already started:
* On the Fox lot in Los Angeles, we have completed three separate reviews of energy use, and found some areas to address immediately. Just switching the bulbs in our exit signs will reduce carbon emissions by 200 tons. That’s equal to 200 flights from New York to L.A.
* We’ve broken ground on the new Fox studios building that will be our first U.S. building officially certified as achieving excellence in environmental design.
* The New York Post has begun replacing lighting at its plant – and we’ll do the same at our headquarters.
* The award-winning Keith Murdoch House in Adelaide, opened two years ago, uses 40 percent less energy than a typical office building. It uses solar panels to heat water, and collects rainwater from the roof to be re-used in the building.
As we upgrade and expand everywhere, building new data centers and office buildings, from Bulgaria to India, from Chicago to Milan, we will always take energy into account.
As we reduce our energy consumption, we are also buying electricity from sources that use less carbon. Both News International and HarperCollins in the U.K. have entered arrangements to buy renewable energy: 70 percent of News International’s electricity will now come from hydro plants in Scotland, saving 36,000 tons of carbon next year alone – enough to fill 650 railroad cars with coal. These two businesses have made such rapid progress that they’ll be carbon-neutral by the end of this year.
Some emissions will be unavoidable. As a last resort, we’ll offset these emissions. A carbon offset is a financial tool to support projects that prevent carbon from being released into the atmosphere.
When our net emissions reach zero – via a combination of operational changes and carbon offsets – we’ll be carbon-neutral. But that’s only the start.
The climate problem won’t be solved by one company reducing its emissions to zero, nor by one government acting alone. It won’t be solved without mass participation by the general public in countries around the globe.
And that’s where we come in.
WE can do something that’s unique, dif ferent from just about any other company. We can set an example – and we can reach our audiences.
Their carbon footprint is 10,000 times bigger than ours. That’s the carbon footprint we want to conquer.
We can’t do it with gimmicks. We need to reach them in a sustained way. To weave this issue into our content – make it dramatic, make it vivid, even sometimes make it fun.
If we succeed in inspiring our audiences to reduce their own impacts on climate change by just 1 percent, it would be like turning the state of California off for almost two months.
And imagine if we were able to take on the carbon footprint of our audience in Asia. Many of the most serious impacts of climate change will be felt there, and China and India’s emissions are rising rapidly. In India alone, we reach 100 million people.
The challenge is to revolutionize the message.
For too long, the threats of climate change have been presented as doom and gloom – because the consequences are so serious. We need to do what our company does best: make this issue exciting.
We can also do some things that are unexpected:
* SPEED, the network devoted to cars and motorcycles, is working on a project that will peek into the future as transportation, fuels and motorsports go green.
* “24” is committing to change the way the show is produced – using biodiesel generators, and powering the studio with renewable energy.
* On July 7, a series of concerts around the world, the LiveEarth concerts, will draw further attention to this issue – and Foxtel will be the exclusive Australian broadcast partner for this event.
* MySpace has launched a channel dedicated to climate change: MySpace.com/OurPlanet. What better way to enable young people to connect with each other and engage on this issue?
Now, there are limits to how far we can push this issue in our content. Not every hero on TV can drive a hybrid car.We must avoid preaching. And there has to be substance behind the glitz. But if we are genuine, we can change the way the public thinks about these issues.
THERE will always be journalists – in cluding some of ours – who are skep tical, which is natural and healthy. But the debate is shifting from whether climate change is really happening to how to solve it. And when so many of the solutions make sense for us as a business, it is clear that we should take action not only as a matter of public responsibility, but because we stand to benefit.
Our company has always been about imagining the future and then making that vision a reality. News was once a small publisher of newspapers in one region of Australia.
There have always been those who doubted us – who doubted us when we expanded to Great Britain, when we launched a fourth broadcast network in the United States, when we launched a cable news network, when we bought MySpace . . .
And they have been proven wrong. At each step, we took a risk and re-invented ourselves.
News Corp. today reaches people at home and at work; when they’re thinking; when they’re laughing – and when they are making choices that have enormous impact.
The unique potential and duty of a media company are to help its audiences connect to the issues that define our time. We are only at the beginning of this mission, and we have a long way to go. As we imagine the future, our responsibility now is to make that future our own.
I hope that each of you will continue to be inspired by that challenge, just as I am. We have much to do.