Big Business
"The chief business of the American people is business. They are profoundly concerned with buying, selling, investing and prospering in the world."
That is the (oft-misquoted) assessment President Calvin Coolidge provided when he spoke to the American Society of Newspaper Editors in 1925, and his comment is more true today than when he first uttered it.
So when big business gets behind federal action on climate change -- as it has -- it means reducing emissions is what will keep the economy humming. That's a signal that has started to register in Washington, thanks to demand for climate legislation from the nation's best managed and most competitive companies.
Stepping Out
Big Business wants federal regulations. Why? Because they hate
uncertainty and because they have an open secret: climate action pays. But it wasn't until presidential approval ratings started to drop that companies felt secure taking on the administration over climate change. One of the first and most notable to dare to do it: General Electric. That's right, GE.
Company CEO Jeff Immelt stepped out in grand fashion in a series of orchestrated events in Washington DC to launch GE's Ecomagination initiative. The White House and Congress noticed that he staked the future of one of America's biggest and most storied companies on the profitability of meeting environmental challenges.
"Increasingly for business" he said, one-upping Coolidge, "'green' is green."
To prove the point of the wake-up call, within a year the company reported that it almost doubled revenues from its portfolio of energy efficient and environmentally advanced products, and announced big deals for clean energy technology with China and India.
US Climate Action Partnership
In January 2007, GE joined nine other companies and four leading non-profits in a call to action directed at the federal government. What did they want? Strong national legislation to achieve significant reductions of greenhouse gas emissions. Who is making the demand? The list has gotten longer but includes the following household brands: Alcoa, Caterpillar, Dupont, and Johnson and Johnson. (Links are to companies' environmental performance reports.)
And these companies have found common ground on solving climate and are in partnership with these non-profits: Natural Resources Defense Council, World Resources Institute, Environmental Defense, Pew Center on Global Climate Change, The Nature Conservancy and the National Wildlife Federation.
Something does leave us scratching our heads, though. Some auto companies have also joined USCAP (Ford, Chrysler, GM). Curious, given that they're strongly opposing higher auto fuel economy standards and suing the state of California for its efforts to legislate clean air. Maybe that's because -- as the saying goes -- "if you're not at the table, you're on the menu."
Upside Story
The biggest news from big business is the open secret that climate action pays, and its corollary -- that doing nothing about global warming is the most unaffordable option of all.
The truth of these new ideas has not yet conquered negative political rhetoric. Opponents of action still have an easy time with pocketbook scare tactics. They point to higher prices -- for gas, for electricity -- as well as higher taxes -- as the certain outcomes of any and all environmental action, and for global warming especially.
But this mythology of economic peril they are selling is being overhwhelmed by the contrary reality of the upside story: increased profitability and competitiveness, new industries and new jobs, and all the unquantifiable benefits that come from healthier, cleaner cities and towns.
Savings and Certainty
Here's the upside story some of the biggest winners are telling, thanks to their focus on emission reduction and energy efficiency: Dow - $4 billion savings; Dupont - $3 billion savings; BP - $1 billion savings. Those staggering figures shouldn't make us sneeze at these savings: Kimberley-Clark - $70 million; IBM - $38 million; J&J - $30 million. All that money drops directly to the bottom line. It's the kind of thing that makes shareholders very happy.
For big business, quite often the entry point to reducing emissions is energy efficiency, the low-hanging fruit that can be harvested with almost no risk and great environmental benefit. Big Business knows how to make climate action pay handsome rewards. What they're asking for now is strong federal legislation, so they can go about their business in an environment of certainty and security, and make 'green' green.
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