Big Business Looking to Reduce Energy Use

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Last week a new Pew report provided some good news on how businesses in the United States are beginning to respond to our changing environment. The report was prompted by recent shifts in how corporate leaders perceive climate change in relation to the their own business’s energy costs. Two years in the making, “From Shop Floor to Top Floor (pdf)” offers advice for businesses hoping to cut back on energy use.

 
The report, which is a product of the Pew Research Center’s Global Climate Change project, highlights results from a 65-question survey on perceptions of climate change and efforts to reduce energy use that Pew conducted with 100 companies. A few of the success stories include IBM, Dow Chemical, Toyota, PepsiCo and Best Buy, which estimates that in 2008 its sales of EPA Energy Star products saved customers $90 million in electricity bills. Toyota holds “treasure hunts” periodically, during which its employees scrutinize plant procedures in search of opportunities to be more energy efficient. Dow estimates that efforts toward energy efficiency since 1994 have saved the company $8.6 billion.
 
Taking an historical approach, the report chronicles the “evolution of energy efficiency strategies,” beginning in the 1970’s with the oil crisis. When energy consumption first hit the radar of business executives, it appeared as a “boiler room” issue, relevant only to isolated technical aspects of the company. It was addressed by changing "peripheral" procedures (metaphorically contained to the "boiler room") that didn't tackle the core of how the overall business was conducted.
 
Pew points out the two main factors that has recently forced U.S. businesses into a more integrated approach to energy savings: the end of cheap energy, which prompts corporations to look to alternative sources, and climate change. A majority of the 100 companies surveyed expected mandatory carbon policies to be implemented in the United States by 2010, and nearly all of those companies expected carbon caps by 2012. 
 
So it appears the federal legislative response to climate change—however spasmodic it may be—is becoming an influencer in how corporate execs conduct business. If Congress builds it, at least Best Buy, Toyota, IBM and a few others will come. As a warning to non-climate-fearing execs: Everyone else could be left in the dust.
 
One more thing that makes corporate leaders eager to take risks in pursuit of energy efficiency (which “leading companies have judged…[to be] lower than other uses of funds and organizational resources"): It keeps up morale.
 
According to the report, “Senior management appears to be aware of the morale value of keeping up sustainability commitments; so when the economic news is bad, with layoffs and other negative impacts occurring, sustainability programs are seen as one way to maintain a positive working environment.”
 
 Read more from YPNation on alternative energy sources.
 
(Photo credit: Ian Britton; C.C. 3.0)