2Sustain

Whether they call it Waxman-Markey, cap-and-trade, or greenhouse gas emission reductions, everyone these days is talking about carbon management –and for good reason. As Stephen Stokes and Kevin O’Marah sum it up in the preface to their excellent article from Monday:

“The Bottom Line: Carbon can be a game changer—positively or negatively. Ignoring this issue is no longer an option. It’s time to develop holistic corporate and supply chain wide strategies that minimize business risk and maximize opportunities associated with carbon.”

Still, if you’re like me, you’re probably wondering, “Is that really what corporate America is doing?”  What evidence is there that businesses across the country preparing for emerging themes relating to “green” initiatives, such as sustainability reporting, GHG footprint reduction, and carbon trading?

For answers to questions like these, be sure to read the entire Stokes and O’Marah article, aptly titled, “The New Age of Carbon.” The authors outline key findings from a recent AMR Research survey regarding carbon management. The survey polled 313 personnel from U.S.-based companies and gathered several intriguing findings. For instance:

• Currently, only 54% of survey respondents are tracking GHG emission data. Even less (34%) publicly report the information.

• When asked why they were collecting GHG data, participants in the survey cited competitive forces/advantage (48%), reporting and business improvement (45%), state-level compliance (39%), and auditing and reporting (37%) as the top reasons.

• When asked why they were not yet collecting GHG data, participants in the survey cited a wide variety of barriers, including lack of IT systems (11%), lack of government incentives to offset costs (11%), lack of legislative guidance (11%). and customer resistance to higher prices (10%).

In addition to presenting the survey findings, Stokes and O’Marah also offer several suggestions for building a low carbon growth strategy. Step Number One, they say, is to “Get over it.” Then, you can move on to other important initiatives, such as linking energy and emission policies and considering new revenue associated with the new carbon economy.

After all, Stokes and O’Marah are right: ignoring this issue is no longer an option. “We anticipate an economic transformation and a new economic environment—one with the strategic priorities around energy and emissions rising significantly, and with carbon as a fully internalized cost of doing business,” they conclude.