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Image by UNFCCC

Good, Clean Fun Can Be Very Smart Business!

In the Fall of 2007, for instance, with several global environmental accords in effect without U.S. participation, constituents started demanding action and seeing results from elected officials. The response has been staggering. Efforts are being undertaken by mayors of cities in 48 states and many state governors representing more than 125 million Americans. True landmark legislation like The Oregon Renewable Energy Act of 2007, if adopted throughout the nation could have a profound impact on the amount of clean energy being produced/help new non-carbon technology emerge.

Prominent business universities in the US and UK have partnered in a first of its kind International Climate Academy to educate high-level business executives on how to seize the business advantage inherent in addressing global climate change. Starting in 2007, Duke and Cambridge hosted sessions twice annually and plan to add a Chinese campus. The Climate Leadership Program steers executives toward identifying and implementing a profitable carbon management strategy.

Corporate America

Corporate America has taken notice. Climate change, carbon management policy and commitments to collaborative partnerships that advance economic growth and the development and deployment of clean, efficient energy technologies have established a place in the top rungs of corporate headquarters. Heavyweight companies -- from Shell Oil to Wal-Mart -- have endorsed mandatory emissions reductions (carbon caps).

Atypical Politics

On the largest U.S. political stage, Republican candidates for President such as John McCain have made climate change a signature issue with support of a "Cap & Trade per Carbon Ton" approach. McCain co-sponsors one Senate proposal to cap U.S. emissions, and half-dozen similar bills have been introduced in the Senate. Individual states are taking action, meanwhile, led by Pacific Northwest states like California and Oregon, where several laws mandate greenhouse-gas reductions expected to cut state's emissions by 25 percent by 2020. Though Minnesota remains sovereign with an ambitious 27.5 percent target.

Presumptive presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., says federal action is needed to rein in emissions of carbon dioxide and other industrial, automotive and agricultural gases blamed by scientists for global warming. What's more, the current administration has been taking a measured "thumping" (as President Bush put it last November) that has activists striking out far beyond mid-term elections. Emboldened environmentalists have launched legal salvos against the US Administration ranging from over a dozen states suing the EPA over soot levels to California signing a global warming technology sharing agreement with Britain. This stretch across the pond not only signals a unified front, but in political terms--a bracing elbow to the cheek just turned after a Fall smackdown delivered to the Republican congress.

Applause echoed from Oslo in October as the Nobel Commission recognized the exemplary efforts of theU.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to guide efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about manmade climate change.

Though, more consternation than praise also tolled the end of Kofi Annan�s tenure as UN Secretary-General. His speech delivered in Nairobi at the XII United Nation Conference on Climate Change at the end of 2006 sharply rebuked the governing body for lack of any significant, measurable progress.

Amplifying Annan�s frustration, just 25 picturesque miles up the River Rhine from the Headquarters of the UN Framework on Climate Change Convention (UNFCCC) in a quaint historic district of Bonn, Germany, an EU-subsidized, private Carbon Brokerage Exchange is flourishing. The Cologne Messe, host of the Global Carbon Market Fair and Conference, has made this event a May fixture and cites the backing of a $10 billion a year industry.

Cologne provides the backdrop and the Messe the platform to execute pragmatic and practical solutions to global warming. As this lively exchange shows, anything [and everything] can be made carbon neutral: events, products, travel, facilities and processes. The Carbon Expo provides business development opportunities for market intermediaries and service providers such as brokers, traders, auditing and certification entities, consultants, and law firms. This critical information facilitation and deal making among buyers, sellers and service providers is an important part of the behind the scenes market development that perks up politicians in the US and the EU.

The Jig is Up

It's only a matter of time until the mood for policy change in Congress goes beyond issues of the war in Iraq. Changing attitudes among US citizens is creating pressure on businesses and government to earnestly look again at the European Union's Emissions Trading Scheme (EUETS). The idea (originally created in the US in the 80s) is that if business A can reduce emissions more cheaply than business B, then B can pay A to make reductions for both of them. Moreover, by putting a price on emitting greenhouse gases, trading is meant to encourage businesses to invent new technologies to replace fossil fuel use. Unfortunately in the 1980s - without a will to act on ecological issues - it quickly became a jury-rigged "shell-game" in US regulatory circles.

But the jig seems to be up. As Eliot Spitzer, (while in his role as NY Attorney General) and now Democratic governor of New York declared as the States lawsuits went forward, "it is unfortunate that this coalition of states must resort to legal action to get the EPA to do its job , protect the environment and the public health." A cogent point when carbon offset cost is considered in regard to today's sophisticated technology. It amounts to stunningly little "ka ching" out of anyone's pocket.

For example, using OneClimate�s calculator on a mid-sized 30 mpg car driving 12,000 miles/year generates about 3.55 tons of CO2/year. This would amount to $1.63/month in consumer offset cost.

CRAGGING without Jenny Craig�; Carbon Du Jour �Watch those Calories�� Technology married to accounting also makes it remarkably easy for businesses to determine the impact of an activity--expressed in terms of carbon emissions and even use peer pressure to arrange creative offsets waivers and recompense. A first of its kind mainstream illustration is London�s WSP Environmental Consultancy setting up a Carbon Rationing Action Group (CRAG) for staff that adds or subtracts from an account that is based on a target carbon footprint. Participants even have the option to keep the cash or donate to carbon-curbing initiatives. The example above requires principled behaviour; much like a diabetic might account for glucose units of exchange.But, if an organization takes the time to determine the interest-level and then formulates a simple approach by asking a few key questions it can easily set up a significant carbon management strategy.

One that's smart for business, healthy for the environment and simply good, clean fun!

By R. T. Eady, President and Founder, Quest Educational Foundation