Citizen Brand

Global warming is good for business

From Reuters, a brief review of a new book from Harvard Business Press which tells today's business leaders they had better remove their heads from the sand when it comes to global warming:

BOSTON (Reuters) - Chief executives can no longer brush off concerns about climate change but need to start figuring out how global warming -- and regulations intended to curtail it -- will affect their businesses.

So asserts "Climate Change: What's Your Business Strategy?" (Harvard Business Press, $18), a new book due out May 1.

"You can remain completely agnostic about the science of climate change but still recognize its importance as a business issue," write authors Andrew Hoffman and John Woody.

Their slim 97-page volume doesn't delve into the science of climate change, which suggests that, by burning fossil fuels and releasing greenhouse gases including carbon dioxide, humans are warming the earth, potentially setting the stage for enormous changes in weather patterns.

Rather, they presume that human responses to climate change -- primarily in the form of regulations that raise the cost of emissions -- will affect how businesses operate.

Smart CEOs will respond by developing a way to measure their company's "carbon footprint" -- the emissions caused by heating buildings and transporting goods, for instance -- finding ways to reduce it and then taking a role in lobbying to influence what new environmental regulations look like.

"I'm talking to those who think, well, the science isn't there and I'm going to continue to stall -- big mistake," said Hoffman, a professor of sustainable enterprise at the University of Michigan, in a telephone interview.

'THIS IS A BUSINESS ISSUE'

"Let's take all the environmental language out of it, let's take all the moral language out of it, the 'Do the right thing' language out of it, and simply say, brass tacks, if you're a business, this is a business issue," Hoffman said.

Climate change will also create opportunities, in the form of new demand for green products, which is attracting new investment, the authors note.

"In green building and alternative energy, there is money to be made," Hoffman said. "That's where (investors) are going and if you're not thinking about this, you're missing out on these capital flows."

The authors cite U.S. industrial heavyweights General Electric Co and DuPont Co as companies that took on climate change directly and found opportunities to both cut their costs and develop projects that appeal to businesses and people concerned about sustainability.

Those companies stand out in part because U.S. CEOs generally trail their European Union counterparts in engagement on this issue, Hoffman said.

"The EU has been under a carbon regime and so they're much more used to addressing this," Hoffman said. "But there's a cultural issue too ... There is, I think, within the general public within Europe a greater sense of the scientific evidence around climate change and the need to respond than there is in the United States."

Taking climate change seriously -- and taking steps to reduce a company's emissions and other environmental impacts -- also gives it a better chance of having influence on future national and international regulations on emissions.

"Regulation is coming. If you want a seat at the table to influence what that regulation should be, you've got to get on this now," Hoffman said. "It may even be too late."

Brown and Green do go together

From Triple Pundit:

"What can Brown do for you?

It’s not just what United Parcel Service can do for you, but it’s also what they can do to trim operating costs and help the environment – all at the same time.

UPS announced this week that the Petaluma branch in Northern California will lease 42 Xebra electric vehicles to deliver smaller packages in congested areas where driving the Big Brown trucks aren’t so conducive to swift navigation through heavy traffic and, the bane of all urban drivers, finding a place to park (or double park, as the case may be).

The Xebra electric vehicle is manufactured by Santa Rosa-based Zap. In business since 1994, with customers in 75 countries, Zap has made over 100,000 electric and alternative vehicles, from scooters to their planned electric SUV.

And now UPS is one of those customers.

With a ground fleet of 94,542 vehicles moving 16 million packages around the world every day, and a barrel of oil hovering in the 90’s, actively pursuing alternatives to large fossil-fueled trucks is a matter of good business sense as well as environmental concern. 

UPS walks the talk with the largest private alternative fuel fleet in the industry.

After all, it doesn’t take a big brown truck to deliver your next order from Amazon to your front door."

Green potato chips

One of my Barkley colleagues, Susan Shank, pointed me to a great story today about another brand figuring out that going green is not just the right thing to do, but is good for business.  In a New York Times story, we learn how Frito-Lay is going to totally convert one of its plants to become energy neutral.  Here is an excerpt from the Times.

"At Frito-Lay’s factory here, more than 500,000 pounds of potatoes arrive every day from New Mexico to be washed, sliced, fried, seasoned and portioned into bags of Lay’s and Ruffles chips. The process devours enormous amounts of energy, and creates vast amounts of wastewater, starch and potato peelings.

Now, Frito-Lay is embarking on an ambitious plan to change the way this factory operates, and in the process, create a new type of snack: the environmentally benign chip.

Its goal is to take the Casa Grande plant off the power grid, or nearly so, and run it almost entirely on renewable fuels and recycled water. Net zero, as the concept is called, has the backing of the highest levels of corporate executives at PepsiCo, the parent company of Frito-Lay.

There are benefits besides the potential energy savings. Like many other large corporations, PepsiCo is striving to establish its green credentials as consumers become more focused on climate change. There are marketing opportunities, too. The company, for example, intends to advertise that its popular SunChips snacks are made using solar energy.

“We don’t know what the complete payoff for net zero is going to be,” said Indra K. Nooyi, PepsiCo’s chairman and chief executive. “If this works even to 50 or 60 percent of its potential, that is fantastic, and it’s so much better than what we already have.”

Stop the presses!  A Chairman/CEO that has authorized a major change in business operations without knowing exactly what the payoff will be.  Pass the chips please!

Wait just a nano-second IBM

Continuing my alternative energy theme for another day, Triple Pundit  tells us that nanosolar coatings provide an even better alternative for solar power production because they do not require silicon.  This makes this method both more efficient from a cost standpoint as well as a more effective means of generating solar power.

Nanosolar can be mass produced because it is a coating that is rolled on to almost anything from glass to roof shingles.  California is taking advantage of this technology as the foundation for its Million Solar Roofs initiative.  In a state that has an abundance of sunshine and is a big energy user, solar power should be top of mind as an alternative.

While there are no easy answers to the energy dilemma we face, it is interesting to note that the buzz about alternatives is heating up, so to speak, and that is always a good thing.

Honda answers IBM

We didn't have to wait long to see which other global corporation would step up to help our planet.  Thanks to Jack Yan for telling us about Honda and the hydrogen car.

The sun shines on IBM

Every little bit helps and when the little bit comes from corporate giant IBM, maybe it will add up a bit faster.  Triple Pundit points us to a story about how the computer behemoth has come up with a way to easily take scrap material left over from the creation of microchips and re-purpose it so it can be used in solar energy panels.  IBM says the process can save money and help satisfy the solar industry's growing appetite for silicon.

Pundit tells us what this means:

"With silicon being the limiting factor for growth in the solar industry, this is a smart solution to help curb the scarce supply of silicon in the future. With the solar industry growing at an alarming 30-40 percent each year the demands for silicon are rising rapidly and the supply is on a short leash. This is why the solar industry is fixing its eye on reclaimed silicon materials sourced primarily from the semiconductor industry. IBM intends to implement the silicon reclamation technology by the second quarter of next year at its two U.S. chip plants."

Thanks IBM for the small step.  Who is next?