Background on the Wingspread Principles
The Wingspread Principles are an outgrowth of the National Leadership Summit on Energy and Climate Change, held at the Johnson Foundation's Wingspread Conference Center in June 2006.
One of the purposes of the Summit was to build greater collaboration among the many individuals and organizations committed to climate action in the United States. Summit organizers asked the 40 assembled leaders these questions:
- Can we speak with one voice on what the U.S. response should be to global climate change?
- If so, what should we say?
Over the next three months, Summit participants crafted and refined a set of principles based on a draft offered by Jonathan Lash, the President of the World Resources Institute.
The National Leadership Summits (the June event was the first of four) were conceived in part to review and update the 140 recommendations submitted to the nation in 1999 by the President's Council on Sustainable Development (PCSD), whose diverse members worked for six years on a plan to "realize a new prosperity for our families and communities". To help fulfill this mission, the PCSD's co-chairmen -- Mr. Lash and Ray Anderson, Chairman of the Board of Interface, Inc. -- agreed to co-chair the Summits.
Climate change was one of the many subjects addressed in the PCSD's final report. The report contained five "Principles for Climate Policy":
- The need for action;
- Incentives for early action;
- Clear commitment, predictable results and flexible implementation;
- Development and dissemination of improved technologies; and
- Fairness.
Those principles are preserved and expanded upon in the 12-part Wingspread document, keeping the Summit's promise of building upon the PCSD's good work. Now, the authors of the Wingspread Principles are inviting others around the nation to co-sign them in the belief that "spoken in one voice", the principles will make a constructive contribution to public dialogue about the critical issue of global warming.
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The Wingspread Principles