(dpa) - Sony, Nokia and other international firms have joined with World Wildlife Fund to mobilize the business world to combat global warming.
Sony chief Sir Howard Stringer and other top managers of 12 international companies on Friday in Tokyo signed an appeal for a new industrywide effort.
They pledged in the Tokyo Declaration to encourage their respective business partners to reduce CO2 emissions and to promote low-carbon lifestyle.
The companies signing on to the declaration included Allianz Group, Nike, Hewlett-Packard Co and the Japanese transport firm Sagawa Express.
They said the aim was to show that some businesses are already successful in cutting CO2 emissions, according to voluntary reduction targets, while making profits, Matthias Kopp from WWF said.
"This is a signal for other companies in the same industry as well as other industries, consumers and politicians alike," Kopp said.
The US pharmaceutical company Johnson & Johnson, for instance, managed to raise sales by 372 per cent between 1990 and 2006 while reducing CO2 emission by 16.8 per cent during the same period, he said.
The company belongs to the founding members of the Climate Savers Programme, which WWF started in 2002. The member companies pursued ambitious targets of CO2 level in the programme.
So far, 50 international companies have joined the programme.