Branson pledges $3 billion to fight global warming
If only there were more business leaders with the vision of Sir Richard Branson.
Yesterday at the Clinton Global Initiative he pledged to spend up to $3 billion over the next 10 years on projects aimed at tackling the global warming. The money is not a donation. He’ll be re-investing all the profits from Virgin’s train and five airline businesses in renewable energy initiatives.
He was asked about his motivation: self-interest or altruism? When it comes to global warming, the two motivations overlap:
“I was bequeathed a beautiful world from my parents and grandparents, and I want to bequeath the same world to my children and their children. And I think unless I can use my business skills to tackle issues like this, then the world that our children and grandchildren inherit will not be a pleasant world at all, and therefore it’s partly selfish, it’s partly, whatever, altruistic, but the important thing is that it is a gesture and I think things like this need to be done if we are going to tackle global warming.”
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