Prince Charles’ Terra Carta project aims to commit businesses to a decade of sustainability.

This week, Prince Charles launched a £7.3 billion Magna Carta-style charter to fix a slew of ‘broken promises’ over the environment and has urged business leaders across the world to invest in the health of the planet and people.

The ‘Terra Carta’ or Earth Charter, which has been inspired by the historic Magna Carta that defined fundamental rights and liberties, forms part of the Sustainable Markets Initiative (a 10-point plan to accelerate the shift to eco-friendly markets) launched by Prince Charles with the World Economic Forum last year, Bloomberg reports.

Today The Prince of Wales’s Sustainable Markets Initiative (@TheSMI) announces the Terra Carta – an ‘Earth Charter’ that puts sustainability at the heart of the private sector.

The Prince will speak about the Terra Carta at the @OnePlanetSummit later today. pic.twitter.com/sPjFGrnAPn

— The Prince of Wales and The Duchess of Cornwall (@ClarenceHouse) January 11, 2021

Combining innovation with resources for Nature

The 10-year plan includes commitments to “recognize that ensuring the integrity of all ecosystems, on land and underwater, requires that climate, oceans, desertification, and biodiversity be treated as one common system and addressed simultaneously.”

Urging industry and business leaders to sign up to his project, Prince Charles, who has long championed environmental issues states: “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 charter, which has nearly 100 actions to become sustainable by 2030 includes financial commitments to a future with low emissions and backing major international climate agreements.

It also aims to raise $10bn (£7bn) in green investment before 2022 through the Natural Capital Investment Alliance.

‘Transform our global economy’

Speaking at the One Planet Summit in France on 11th January 2021, via video link, Prince Charles told delegates: “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,” Charles told delegates

“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 prince hopes his ambitious project, which harnesses the private sector and big business will help put an end to decades of unfulfilled agreements on the environment and give ‘our children and grandchildren the future they deserve’.

The project has already acquired the support of leading businesses such as Bank of America, Blackrock, EY, AstraZeneca, Schroders, BP, and Heathrow Airport.

• Read: More than 1.5 billion face masks believed to have flooded the oceans in 2020

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Mohsina Dodhiya

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