Prince Charles launches new sustainability initiative

Prince Charles has sent an "urgent appeal" to businesses to support an initiative to encourage sustainable practices.

The 72-year-old old royal has launched the Terra Carta, an action plan for companies as part of a recovery process designed to drastically improve the carbon footprint of businesses by 2030 and he's urged as many organisations as possible to sign up to it.

The Terra Carta - which was designed by Sir Jony Ive, Apple's former Chief Design Officer - is part of the Sustainable Markets Initiative which Charles launched last year, and “provides a roadmap to 2030 for businesses to move towards an ambitious and sustainable future, one that will harness the power of nature combined with the transformative power, innovation and resources of the private sector”.

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A statement continued: "The Terra Carta is based on a series of recommendations developed over a year of HRH convening ‘coalitions of the willing’ among global business leaders across industries in almost every sector, challenging them to identify ways to set our planet on a fundamentally more sustainable trajectory. Together, they have developed a charter of ambitious, but practical action aimed at building a truly sustainable future."

Charles urged business leaders around the world to lend their support to the action plan.

He told the One Planet Summit: “Today, I am making an urgent appeal to leaders, from all sectors and from around the world to give their support to this Terra Carta – to bring prosperity into harmony with Nature, People and Planet over the coming decade.

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“I can only encourage, in particular, those in industry and finance to provide practical leadership to this common project, as only they are able to mobilise the innovation, scale and resources that are required to transform our global economy.

“The Terra Carta offers the basis of a recovery plan that puts Nature, People and Planet at the heart of global value creation – one that will harness the precious, irreplaceable power of Nature combined with the transformative innovation and resources of the private sector.”

The 17-page document features 10 action points and 85 recommendations for businesses to take and has already received support from the likes of Bank of America, AstraZeneca, BP, and Heathrow Airport.