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Firms taking steps to deal with global warming
By Martha M. Hamilton
The Washington Post
Washington -- A few U.S. businesses are beginning to take practical steps to deal with what their managers regard as a real potentially dangerous trend -- global climate change.
These companies have concluded that the spread of carbon dioxide and other "greenhouse" gasses -- through the burning of fossil fuels such as coal and oil -- could produce devastating worldwide changes in temperature and precipitation. They fear this "global warming" will be harmful to the environment -- and also to the corporate bottom line.
Some of the corporate steps are tentative, and they come at a time when most U.S. companies are still spewing out carbon dioxide without thinking much about its potential costs. Indeed, representatives of the U.S. coal, oil and utility industries are vigorously opposing a Clinton administration plans to seek binding limits on release of greenhouse gases. But there are signs, too, of changing business attitudes toward global warming.
At Mobil Corp., for instance, there have been staff-level discussions about whether the company should track its emissions of carbon dioxide. Mobil hasn’t yet reached any decision on the matter, a spokesman said.
But some are more concrete.
Monsanto Co., the chemical and biotechnology company, has begun measuring its own CO emissions. "If you look at the kind of businesses Monsanto is in, the economic consequences of even a slightly warmer would are pretty devastating," said Kate Fish, director of public policy for the St. Louis-based company.
"We depend on farmers to a large part, and farmers depend on things like stable weather patterns and soil moisture content," she said. "Extreme weather patterns are daunting."
Because of that, the issue of global warming is taken seriously by senior management at the company, she said. "The first step is where are you with CO emissions."
Although environmental laws require companies to keep track of other emissions -- such as sulfur dioxide and nitrous oxide -- carbon dioxide emissions have been "free," she noted.
Other companies have studied ways to offset or reduce emissions of carbon dioxide. AES Corp., a company that builds independent power generating plants (including one on Oahu), has in several cases in the past planted trees or bought endangered forests -- because the trees will help absorb carbon dioxide produced by the power plants.
Dow Chemical Co. has established a goal of improving energy efficiency at a rate of 2 percent annually, per product manufactured, according to Paul Cicio, the company's manager of carbons and energy policy. This is one of a series of global environmental goals the chemical company has established, he said.
"The most important way companies improve energy efficiency is when they build new facilities," Cicio said.
For instance, a new plant in Alberta, Canada, which produces ethylene -- the basic raw material for the production of plastics -- is 30 percent more efficient than a similar plant built just 17 years ago.
The Honolulu Advertiser, January 20, 1997
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