Richard Branson has invested in only 7.6% sustainability than promised
In 2006, the entrepreneur and founder of Virgin, Richard Branson, made a statement bombastic: over the next decade, he would invest three billion ($ 7 billion) in business and sustainable technologies.Branson explains in his autobiography, Screw it, let's Do It, he was impressed when Al Gore, then touring worldwide with the an inconvenient truth project, explained the dangers of climate change. "Listened to Gore and thought I was looking at Armageddon", revealed the Manager.Months later, Branson was on Clinton Global Initiative promising to spend three billion ($ 7 billion) in the next decade, to developing biofuels as an alternative to oil and gas, and other technologies to combat climate change. The world was thrilled with the promise of Branson-Clinton apeliou her "precursor"-mainly because she would be subsidized by the highly polluting Virgin Atlantic.Eight years later, the journalist Naomi Klein, the Guardian newspaper, he investigated where was this money and found that there's no money. Branson has invested over the past eight years, €177 million (US $ 577 million) in projects related to sustainability â€" less than a tenth of what was promised, when little more than a year for the period expires."For many mainstream ecologists, Branson seemed like a dream come true: a darling of the media that shows the world that highly polluting companies can lead the way to a green future, using profits as their most potent weapon," explained Klein â€" who accused Bill Gates and Michael Bloomberg, albeit in smaller doses, of the same type of hypocrisy.According to Klein, Branson began to invest € 100 million ($ 303 million) in a deal of biofuel from ethanol. However, investors concluded that the technology was not sufficiently developed and diversified investments.In 2009, Branson defended the pledge in an interview with Wired: "it doesn't matter if you invest two, three or four billion, is not relevant." So, he blamed the economic crisis by their meager investments. "The world was very different in 2006 ... for the last eight years the airline has lost hundreds of millions of dollars".Since 2006 â€" the year of promise â€" Branson Airlines increased emissions of greenhouse gases by 40%. Then there's the formula one team and Virgin Galactic, which hopes to launch the first commercial spaceflight. Only in this draft, according to Fortune, Branson will have spent € 150 million ($ 467 million).Promise to invest in sustainable innovation is easy â€" the hard part is keeping promises. And even Richard Branson escape this reality.Foto: Jarle Naustvik / Creative Commons
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