Global warming goes from fringe issue to bottom line By JOHN GOLDEN

Global warming goes from fringe issue to bottom line
By JOHN GOLDEN

Climate change poses great financial risks and opportunities for businesses, a leading consultant on sustainability issues and initiatives told Westchester County’s Global Warming Task Force last week.

“Climate change is the sustainability issue of the 21st century,” John L. Cusack, president of Gifford Park Associates, an Eastchester management and policy consulting firm, told leaders from Westchester’s business, government and education sectors who are working on an action plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and conserve energy and natural resources in the county. He defined sustainability as “integrating environmental, social and economic principles into the decision-making process and analysis.”

“We’re just at the beginning. We’re at the Model-T era for sustainability,” Cusack said at a roundtable meeting in the Westchester County Center.

“At this point we’re not going to stop climate change. We’re going to slow it down. We’re going to manage it. But we’re not going to stop it in its tracks,” he said.

Cusack, president of the Environmental Business Association of New York State and executive director of the New Jersey Higher Education Partnership for Sustainability, followed Rep. John Hall, D-19th District, in addressing the task force, whose work began a few months ago at the request of County Executive Andrew J. Spano. The task force has an Oct. 10 deadline to complete its action plan.

Spano asked the task force to do the following:

• Update a 2001 inventory of total greenhouse gas (GHG) produced in Westchester. That study estimated the county produced almost 12 million tons of carbon dioxide in 1999, higher than the state average. The transportation sector accounted for about 51 percent of carbon dioxide emissions. Residential household energy use accounted for about 30 percent. The commercial sector accounted for about 19 percent.

• Recommend a GHG reduction goal and a strategy to achieve the goal.

• Identify possible actions to achieve the goal specific to the government, education and business sectors, as well as to individual households.

• Recommend a sustainable development program for Westchester to reduce energy and water consumption, improve air and water quality, reduce solid waste and the use of toxic materials and promote land use compatible with these priorities.

• Develop a plan to monitor progress.

• Assist all sectors with their changes.

Cusack and Hall, the first-year congressman from Dover Plains, both said that “smart growth” commercial and residential development near mass transit that reduces use of single-occupancy automobiles and reducing energy use are essential to sustainable living.

“The cheapest, most cost-effective way to reduce GHG emissions is to cut use,” Cusack said. He noted that California has doubled its economy in the last 20 years with the same per capita energy use.

Offering an example of simple conservation, Hall said all supermarkets and convenience stores should be required to have glass or plastic covers on cold cases. Uncovered refrigerated cases blast out cold air even while store heating systems are operating, he noted.

Advocating smart growth, Cusack said, “It does no good to build a LEED (leadership in energy and environmental design) building in the middle of nowhere and you’ve got to get in your SUV and drive miles to drive your 31-pound kid to school.”

Hall said solutions to the growing global warming crisis “would create new jobs, new industries and new technologies here.”

Cusack offered numerous examples of the opportunities for businesses that adopt sustainability practices and strategies.

Cusack pointed to IBM’s decision to recycle computers and computer parts for use in its leasing business. That business did $2 billion in sales in a three-year period with a 50 percent profit margin, he said.

General Electric’s Ecomagination division, which offers alternative-energy products and services worldwide, has done $12 billion in sales, Cusack said.

“We’re in one of those rare moments when the right thing to do is also the economically smart thing to do,” he said. “Being sustainable in the long run is not going to cost the economy; it’s going to make money for the economy and businesses.”

In business, intangible value which includes “knowledge capital,” speed and agility, innovative capacity and stakeholder management now accounts for 75 percent to 80 percent of a company’s market value, Cusack said. Companies that are strongest in addressing environmental issues and adopting sustainability practices also perform better in the stock market, he said.

“Sustainability has to be real, tangible, measured and reported on a regular basis,” Cusack said. “You’re going to differentiate winners from losers. In business, it might be whether your stocks go up or go down.”

Sustainability is an increasingly important risk management tool for businesses, he said.

George Drapeau III, chairman of the task force’s business sector, said the committee hopes this summer to get 800 to 1,000 responses from Westchester businesses surveyed about their energy use and conservation measures. The committee has divided the county’s wide range of businesses into eight categories, in each of which companies are likely to have common energy uses and concerns.

Drapeau said people leading the move to reduce green gas emissions in Westchester are “skeptical” until they see substantive action by the federal government. “You’ve got to raise the federal standards for emissions from automobiles,” which account for 25 percent of greenhouse gas emissions, Drapeau said. “That’s a priority, I think.”

Drapeau said the federal government must provide incentives for businesses to invest in energy efficiency by extending extended tax credits for alternative-energy measures and maintaining depreciation allowances on those assets.

“That goes a long way toward pushing the ball down the field,” he said. “You’ve got to know there’s going to be a long-term return on your investment. Companies that don’t make money don’t stay in business.”

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