"(...) A clear, stable regulatory direction is essential for delivering the certitude needed for business to deliver change. Yet I need to hear where the policy can change to drive faster rates of innovation and where it can remove blocks to business models that would deliver greater efficiency with reduced investment cost. This Bee initiative is the kind of flow of information which I believe is essential. (...)"

Environment Commissioner Janez Potočnik at the GLOBE EU Bee Group lunchtime

roundtable "Europe in Search of Excellence in Resource Efficiency" - full speech here

In January 2010 the sobering experience of the COP15 in Copenhagen was fresh in everyone's mind. In this context, GLOBE EU invited a group of delegates from progressive business and industrial interests to a dinner at the European Parliament to take stock and look ahead into the challenges of the EU 2020 Strategy -aimed at making Europe a resource-efficient, low-carbon economy- and beyond: “What would we need to do, us in politics and in the industry, to make Europe more sustainable?”

GLOBE EU and its guests agreed that many corporations clearly show a lack of knowledge and long-term vision to weather today's challenges: from the financial and economic crisis to escalating environmental degradation. But they also agreed that regulatory failures such as COP15  represent an opportunity for the responsible corporate community to take the lead and forge ahead towards the low-carbon and resource-efficient economy, while contributing to empowering policy-makers to deliver the necessary legal certainty as soon as possible.

This is how the Bee Group was launched in February 2010, as a progressive corporate think tank under the patronage of GLOBE EU, with two working groups:

* Resource Intelligent Europe * Financing the EU 2050 Agenda

Rationale

The long-awaited entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty is a turning point for the European Parliament. After almost ten years, the Members of the European Parliament enjoy new powers to steer and move forward EU policy.

GLOBE EU MEPs are keen to benefit from the experience and insight of the Bees, a community of forward-thinking, environmentally responsible corporate partners, to find answers to manage the transition towards a low-carbon, resource-efficient economy. To open the way to this economic model, industry players must think beyond “what we must do” and focus on “what we can do”, and engage in constructive dialogue within their respective sectors in search of best practices and in support of progressive positive legislation. At the same time, legislators must capitalise on existing best practices and reward corporate pro-activeness.

The expertise of lobbyists can be a valuable asset to legislators, but conventional exchanges of information are often haphazardic and time-constrained. Furthermore lobbyists face the challenge of having to hone their messages according to the varying level of expertise of each MEP. This is why the structured dialogues of the Bee Group add value to their work as legislators.

The Vision

• Some of the changes towards a low-carbon, resource-efficient economy are being driven by the current market dynamics, but not all: more often than not, the current productive model and regulatory framework privatise profits and socialise costs, and does not reward corporate commitments to sustainability. As a matter of fact, the current marketplace is distorted by direct and indirect subsidies to unsustainable products and practices. Without the right incentives and market mechanisms to drive sustainability and resource efficiency, citizens see themselves firstly forced to live in a gradually eroded environment resulting from unsustainable productive practices, and secondly asked to assume the higher costs of environmentally responsible products as consumers.

• However, consumers are very price-sensitive when intangible goods such as sustainability are sold. For this reason, the current marketplace often does not reward corporate commitments to sustainability either. Furthermore it is democratically questionable to delegate the daunting task of correcting a deliberately distorted market to the individual citizens – they already elect political representatives to Government and expect them to legislate in the interest of the people.

• Legislators ought to do better at integrating legislation with the bottom line of forward-looking corporations by delivering incentives to innovate towards resource-efficiency, upscale best practices and new business models, and by preventing free-riders from taking advantage from their lack of ambition. This would enable and protect the fastest, vision-driven corporate actors in each sector, rather than the laggards. Positive legislation able to manage the transition towards a more sustainable model is needed. The Eco-Design Directive, driven forward by industry voluntary agreements and whose scope keeps on widening, from energy-using products to energy-related products and in the future to natural resource-related products, is a successful example of this type of legislation.

Therefore...

• The Bee Group is not a lobby, but rather a forum for business and industry partners keen to put in practice a new definition of proactive interest representation whose aim is to propose alternatives inspired by a long-term vision, not to defend the statu quo.

• This forum is best suited to debate medium- and long-term strategies and visions. Its purpose is not to defend any specific interests in the short-term, but to think about the future.

"The Bee Group of GLOBE EU is a great opportunity for executives who believe in sustainability, resource efficiency, Corporate Social Responsibility and environmental management; it represents a pivotal moment to share ideas and canalize them into the European political body through the experience of the parliamentarians that support it.”

Governance and Membership

Download here: GLOBE EU Bee Group Charter * GLOBE EU Bee Group Governance Framework

As a think-do tank, the success of the GLOBE EU Bee Group hinges on mutual trust and a commitment of all parties to both substantive debate and action.

The MEPs and the Bee delegates convene at least once a year at the European Parliament for a general strategy meeting in which the annual priority policy issues of the Group are established. The last Strategy meeting took place on 12th January 2011. See participants list and a summary of the key substantive issues identified.

Every GLOBE EU Bee Group event is piloted by at least one MEP office and one Bee delegate. Bees are welcome to organise themselves in ad-hoc task forces in order to contribute to the steering of the work.

The role of the Bees is threefold:

• Identify, through life cycle and value chain approaches, underlying causes and drivers for the issues and challenges identified in the RIE Declaration within their respective sectors, with a particular focus on the issues identified in the plenary GLOBE EU Bee Group strategy meetings; propose alternative policies measures and the corresponding strategic fora to address them;
• Serve as ambassadors of the GLOBE EU Bee activities and raise awareness of GLOBE EU Bee work among key decision makers and facilitate the mobilisation of a platform of ‘willing’ allies across stakeholder groups (Government, parliamentarians, research , business, civil society) for them to become ‘ambassadors’;
• Identify knowledge partners able to provide eventual research and policy development support.

Membership to the Bee Group of GLOBE EU is open to business and industry delegates committed to the vision of long-term sustainability and ready to provide expertise and constructive input to policymakers towards this long-term vision as laid down in the Bee Group Charter. GLOBE EU and the Bees are honoured to rely on the Tällberg Foundation as an academic knowledge partner of these dialogues. A sectorial approach to the expansion of the Bee Group membership base is seen as desirable in order to facilitate the development of tangible action and deliverables.

The membership fee for 2011 is 7,500€. These funds contribute to finance the activities of the GLOBE community in the European region.

The current corporate members of the Bee Group include Dow, First Solar, General Electric, Holcim, Cemex, Procter & Gamble, Rockwool, Suez Environnement and Unilever.

Transparency

Although GLOBE EU is not an official Intergroup of the European Parliament and is therefore not subject to the European Parliament rules governing Intergroups, as a registered non-profit international organisation under Belgian law (AISBL) GLOBE EU must report its financial interests to the Registry of the Belgian Company House (Greffe du Tribunal du Commerce/Griffie van de Rechtbank van Koophandel) by 31st June every year.