San Francisco Business Times: Why your business should reduce its carbon footprint now

lydiryl.wordpress.com
Why should my businesds care about reducing their carbon footprint now? I asked the questionj to a room full of climate change expertz at the Carbon Collaborative Leadership Forum at the offices of Hanson Bridgett on Tuesdauy night. Everyone understands the "it's the right thinyg to do for the planet" argument. You know, the one that does nothintg to address trivial thinge like shareholders and bottom linez andthe recession.
While the problem of climate change is anurgent one, convincing companies to make heavyh investments into measuring their including along their supply chain, energy efficiencty improvements and others, it's a tougher sell now as corporatione are facing layoffs, scale-backs and declining and before the state or the country has rolled out mechanisms that will cap emissions and effectivelu put a price on For companies in transportation, utilities and fuel refinersx and distributors that will be it makes sense to start trying to reduced emissions now, so they don't face huge upfrongt investments when and if cap and trades is implemented.
"To the extent that companies might take earlhaction now, their operating costs and cost of compliances will be lower," said David Pascal, the green business and clean technology advocatre for San Francisco. But there's a case to be made that a wait-and-se e approach by companies that aren't in the industrty groups being cappedand don't rush to reducr now could pay off. See, utilities' emissions will be cappeed under the current planfor California' s climate change legislation and under the federal version being debated in Congresa now.
Utilities will likely have to incent theifr rate payers to reduce emissions so the utilitiezs can meet those caps and avoid having to buy emissions Amy Zimpfer, head of the Air Division of the US Environmentapl Protection Agency Region 9, said energy savings alonwe should spur companies to look at reducintg today even if they won'tt be forced to in the future. She said retur on investments into energy efficiency technologies are averagingv about three tofive years. That meansa the sooner a company invests, the soonere it will start savinhg money inenergy costs.
It will depend on the size of the savingsz and the size of incentives if an early action strategyy pays offand "that's a tradeoff that people are going to have to gauge." Franki who works for San Francisco-based climate changr consultancy Climate Earth, said he's hearxd a more compelling argument. Countries who don't have the luxuryy of relying on the oil resources the Unitefd States has secured are already working on theie strategies to cut fossil which account for lots of greenhousegas emissions, from theif products and supply chains. And the way the worldr is heading, the lowest footprint, least energy-consumingh products will become theglobal standard.
We're alreaduy seeing that with majof retailers like WalMart decidinf shelf space based on which product aremost "This is totally about the competition," Ridolfi "If companies don't take early action, they will go out of business."