Cutting Emissions: Just Good Business

March 11, 2010 – Vol.14 No.51

CUTTING EMISSIONS: JUST GOOD BUSINESS.
by Bruce Mulliken, Green Energy News

I’m in sunny Florida on vacation as I work to write this story. Which I guess means I’m really not on vacation.

Every time I fly I take a window seat for the view. I want to survey the planet that I live on and the atmosphere I live in. One thing I look for is fires. On the ground a fire can be a local tragedy, hopefully doused quickly by brave firefighters.

From the air fires are anything but local. Watching closely from my window seat, I can see the billowing clouds of smoke that travel and expand, covering a wide swath not noticeable from the ground. Smoke from what appears to be a house fire or a burning car can spread out over tens of square miles, perhaps hundreds.

Smoke, or the exhaust, from fires is easily tracked because the particles of ash or whatever are relatively large, easy to see with reflected sunlight.

But I’m not fooled into thinking that smoky fires are the only ones down there. Every car, every house with chimney, every thermal power plant, every industry that burns something in its manufacturing process can be creating a fire, but a fire that is not necessarily making visible smoke. Just because I don’t see thousands of smoke plumes outside my airplane window at any given moment doesn’t mean the fires are not there. Over the decades pollution control equipment has made exhaust invisible, but has not made it disappear. Our atmosphere is being altered by gases we can’t see.

Flying, I get a little depressed too. There is so much exhaust of mankind being ejected into the air, including that from the engines of the airplane I’m in, how are ever going to get it under control?

Then I land and there’s hope everywhere I look. Lined up near baggage claim at the Tampa airport is a small fleet of neighborhood electric vehicles: no direct exhaust there. The neighbor at the house I’m renting drives an electric golf cart for local trips. I see others on the island I’m visiting using golf carts and bicycles instead of cars. The local newspaper has a story: The state has quickly used up its popular funding assistance for solar energy projects, and is seeking ways to fill the coffers of the program. In downtown to St. Petersburg a Sparrow flies by, not the winged kind but a three-wheeled, one-passenger electric car no longer made. And I always remember the constant stream of news that I get from industry: despite a recession and sporadic help from Washington, the clean energy movement is taking hold in the United States.

At the individual level people are taking on clean energy and energy efficiency out of concern for the planet or a goal to be energy independent or just a fascination with the technology. Or perhaps any combination of reasons.

Businesses and industry, while they may have similar concerns have others, like saving money on energy. The wing tips on many jetliners curl up into the air, not to make the planes look more birdlike, but to save fuel, thus cash. The old Southwest Airlines plane I was on did not have these, but most of the company’s fleet seems too. Southwest has not faced the extreme financial difficulties of other airlines. The wing tip investment has likely helped. (The uplifted wing tips help cut down turbulence and drag, reducing fuel consumption.)

Generally speaking of all companies, efforts made to cut fossil fuel energy consumption, and by default greenhouse gases, are not only about immediately saving money or even part of feel good, go-green public relations campaigns. Cutting energy consumption may be out of fear. Not fear that the Federal government will soon initiate some law that will force energy and emission cuts, but fear that energy costs could skyrocket again at any time.

Companies may be building clean energy capacity as a hedge against hikes in future energy costs. The US could likely see another spike in energy costs, particularly oil costs, even if its economy grows at a snail’s pace. The reason here is that other economies are growing and cars are being put on the road that weren’t there before, increasing the size of the global automotive fleet and increasing international demand on oil supplies.

Global markets and growing economies in places like India and China mean that global oil prices may no longer be determined by consumption in the United States, as those prices once were. It’s a good bet that US no longer has control over prices in a sector of its economy that is directly responsible for its economic and global political might.

There’s yet another related concern for thoughtful corporations: the possible (and likely) effect of a warming planet on extreme weather events.

The US and Europe has been hit by a string of bad weather. Bad weather means people stay at home and stay out of stores. The string of snowstorms in the US, though not causing any layoffs, certainly caused a disruption of many companies’ bottom lines. If freak weather is being caused by man-made emissions, what damage will the weather do to business 5 or 10 years from now?

The insurance industry takes the financial brunt of bad weather, covering the physical damage, but there is no insurance for lost sales.

When Walmart recently announced a goal to eliminate 20 million metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions from its global supply chain by the end of 2015 (the equivalent of taking more than 3.8 million cars off the road for a year) it was not just about saving money through energy efficiency and proving respectable environmental stewardship, it was about doing business, making sales, in the future. True, one company’s action can’t save the world but it can set a positive example.

Generally, companies have to think about the long haul. If the future looks problematic then all they can do is make internal changes and hope others take similar action. If Washington ever takes steps to force cuts in greenhouse gas emissions in a major way it will be the voices of business that convince political leaders to do so.

Eventually cutting emissions, cutting down on that unseen smoke, will just be good business.

Links:

Walmart Stores Greenhouse Gas Commitment
http://walmartstores.com/Sustainability/9660.aspx

Southwest Airlines
http://www.southwest.com