Companies Shift to Greener Practices: Will the Nobel Peace Prize Spur a Greener Corporate Future?
Josh Walter
October 19, 2007
On Friday, October 12, 2007, former Vice-President Al Gore and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change ("IPCC") won the Nobel Peace Prize "for their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change." The information Al Gore and the IPPC have been relaying through documentary movies, such as "An Inconvenient Truth," reports, and presentations on the growing threat of climate change have been changing institutional choices in numerous corners of the United States and around the world. Recently, a number of companies and industries historically not associated with environmental values took affirmative steps to help offset the effects of climate change or instituted practices to promote a more natural environment. Recently, the country's largest garbage company, the funeral industry, and the golf industry started to implement greener practices.
Waste Management Inc. ("WMI"), the largest garbage hauler and landfill operator in the U.S. announced that the company will spend hundreds of millions of dollars to overhaul its operations to make its business more environmentally friendly. WMI plans to increase vehicle fleet fuel-efficiency and to more than double the amount of recyclable material it processes. The company also has major plans to convert methane gas emitted by landfills into electricity. Landfills are the largest man-made source of methane emissions and the second largest contributor to greenhouse gas emissions, second only to carbon dioxide emitting sources. The company operates 283 landfills, seventy-three of which currently have the capability to convert methane into electricity.
The funeral industry is also instituting more environmentally friendly practices. Funeral homes refrigerate bodies and use dry ice during public viewing. This practice lowers the amount of embalming fluid used and subsequently leaked into the ground and ground water. Additionally, instead of using burial vaults, cemeteries are beginning to bury bodies in biodegradable wood boxes or cloth shrouds. 1.6 million tons of cement are used to build and expand burial vaults each year. The cement and concrete industry are large contributors to carbon dioxide emissions due to the predominant use of coal in firing and processing materials in extreme heat. Often times, cement manufacturers use highly polluting alternative fuels such as tire-derived fuel in their processes.
The U.S. Professional Golf Association partnered with Audubon International to start an environmental-certification program for golf courses. The program will reward golf courses if they implement water conservation strategies, reduce pesticide use, and create wildlife conservation plans for land not used for golf play. Historically, the golf industry has been a major contributor to water shortages and water pollution from nitrogen-rich fertilizer run-off that causes toxic algae blooms in streams and lakes.
These are all examples of how climate change and consumer choice drives change in industry standards to implement environmentally friendly practices. Despite these examples, it goes without saying that there are still industries continuing down the path of the status quo. For example, the coal and electrical industry, through the Electric Power Research Institute, recently reported that more coal fired power plants, and consequently coal consumption, will lower carbon emissions, and Toyota Motors along with Detroit's "Big Three" auto makers are fighting to stop congress from increasing vehicle fuel emissions standards.
Sources:
nobelprize.org, The Nobel Peace Prize 2007, http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/2007/index.html (last visited Oct. 18, 2007).
Walter Gibbs & Sarah Lyall, Gore Shares Peace Prize for Climate Change Work, N.Y. Times, Oct. 13, 2007.
Associated Press, Waste Management Vows More Waste-to-Energy Plants, More Recycling, Oct. 11, 2007, available at http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21255085/ (last visited Oct. 18, 2007).
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Landfill Methane Outreach Program (LMOP), An Overview of Landfill Gas Energy in the United States (2007), available at http://www.epa.gov/outreach/lmop/docs/overview.pdf.
Jim Ritter, Some Burials Going Green, Chicago Sun Time, Oct. 15, 2007, available at http://www.suntimes.com/news/metro/603401,CST-NWS-green15.article.
Audubon International, Audubon Cooperative Sanctuary Program for Golf Courses (ACSP), http://www.auduboninternational.org/programs/acss/golf.htm (last visited Oct. 18, 2007).
Economist.com, Chipping in, http://www.economist.com/world/international/PrinterFriendly.cfm?story_id=9930898 (last visited Oct. 18, 2007).
Electric Power Research Institute, The Power to reduce CO2 Emissions, available at http://epri-reports.org/DiscussionPaper2007.pdf; but see Sean Casten, EPRI: The Secret to Carbon Reduction is More Coal: Really?, Aug. 16 2007, available at http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2007/8/15/115820/296.
Thomas L. Friedman, Editorial, Et Tu, Toyota?, N.Y. Times, October 3, 2007, available at http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/03/opinion/03friedman.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&oref=slogin.