Can targeted economic incentives clean up an industry? Or does real change require a fundamental, government-backed restructuring? That’s the question raised by two different clean-up approaches being pursued by U.S. ports. Ports are a vital link in international trade. But they are dirty. Diesel ships, locomotives and trucks, many of them old, poorly maintained and inefficient, [...]
Entries Tagged as ‘emissions’
January 14, 2010
Carbon on Company Balance Sheets?
Despite the fizzle after the great fanfare of the Copenhagen Summit, many companies remain intensely focused on the strategic implications of climate change. Some believe that a requirement to monitor, report and reduce their carbon emissions is coming and is just a question of time. Indeed, some observers believe that carbon accounting is destined to be embedded [...]
January 5, 2010
Where is Clean Tech Heading in 2010?
Sorry, I can’t say I know yet where clean tech is heading in 2010. I’m still getting reoriented after the holiday. But early signs are that, as usual, both the hype and the backlash against the hype, are a bit overblown. The Economist had a nice assessment of the post-Copenhagen landscape: mixed, essentially. On the [...]
July 28, 2009
My Clean, Green, Sustainable Reading List
Over the last few months I’ve been reading through the literature on clean tech, energy and sustainability. In case you are looking for suggestions, I can recommend any or all of these. If you have any reactions or suggestions for further reading, please consider leaving a comment. Solar Revolution: The Economic Transformation of the Global [...]
June 12, 2009
Are Climate-Savvy Companies Better Investments?
A new report by Goldman Sachs suggests that rising cost to emit carbon dioxide will have a significant impact on the competitive position and long-term valuation of companies.
June 2, 2009
The Cost of Corporate Carbon Footprinting
Many factors influence the cost of conducting a corporate greenhouse case inventory, including company size and complexity of operations. We can find examples of corporate inventories that cost as little as a few thousand dollars to conduct up to the $1 million annually that UPS spends.
May 21, 2009
Unintended Consequences, Part II: Air vs. Water
I recently posted on the unintended consequences that often come along with energy technologies. An article by Forest Reinhardt in the Harvard Business Review 10 years ago presented a framework for making environmental strategy and investment decisions. It also provided another example of the unintended consequences of energy technology. In this case, technology that reduced [...]
May 14, 2009
Soda Machines Return $1 Million: Facts & Figures from a Green Conference
I attended a conference produced by Executive Council today in New York City entitled “The Green in Green.” Here are a few facts and figures I gathered from the discussion. Cost of Carbon Bob Stoffel of UPS said the company expects that emitting carbon will soon carry a price tag in this country and assumes [...]
April 29, 2009
Are Biofuels the Answer?
Are biofuels the answer? It depends on what the question is. Biofuel Investment Prospects BusinessWeek this week has a solid article reviewing the investment landscape for biofuels. The question it tries to answer is, Who will make money in biofuels? The short answer, according to BusinessWeek: “Shell, BP, DuPont, and other majors.” Read the article [...]
April 27, 2009
Weird Consensus on Global Warming Emerging?
Are the arguments about global warming getting weirder? Last week Bjorn Lomborg opined in the New York Times, as he has elsewhere, that cutting emissions of greenhouse gases is a waste of time. Lomborg, author of “The Skeptical Environmentalist,” which argued against the idea that global warming was getting worse, seems now to acknowledge “the [...]
March 27, 2009
Sustainability and Corporate Strategy
I was at The Economist’s 2009 Sustainability Summit this morning. (Thanks for having me, Economist.) It kicked off with a review of the global economic situation by Leo Abruzzese, Editorial Director for North America of the Economist Intelligence Unit. (They foresee a return to slow growth in the US sometime in the third quarter of [...]
March 26, 2009
Carbon Tax vs. Carbon Caps: Dissecting the Rhetoric
Like many public policy debates, the one over how to best reduce carbon emissions is too complex to be properly treated in an Op-Ed article. That’s why yesterday’s piece in the Wall Street Journal by Fred Krupp, president of Environmental Defense Fund, is misleading. Under Krupp’s leadership, EDF has been an amazingly effective organization. They [...]
