When Earth Day began in 1970 it had almost nothing to do with businesses — except for blaming them for the pollution they created. The concern for pollution is still there, but more and more, Earth Day is taking on a new meaning for companies — large ones, at least.
Big corporations are expected to factor in environmental considerations into everything they do, from production to packaging to delivery. It’s getting harder to ignore shareholders and even employees who want a greener footprint.
In some states controlled by liberal Democrats, such as California, big businesses face more than just gentle encouragement. They operate under increasingly strict laws that seek to minimize their pollution and energy consumption. That cuts into profit, somewhat or a lot, but it’s not something that CEOs and corporate boards can ignore anymore.
The pressure even extends to some companies once considered to be among the most environmentally unfriendly — like Big Oil.
10 basic things you can
do to help save the earth
1) Conserve water
2) Drive less, carpool more
3) Walk, bike or take public transit
4) Reduce, reuse, recycle
5) Give composting a try
6) Switch to LEDs
7) Minimize energy use
8) Eat sustainable foods
9) Plant a tree (or two)
10) Reduce use of plastics
Source: Science/HowStuffWorks.com
Shell, Total and Repsol are industry leaders in the transition to renewable energy. Chevron is increasing its use of renewable energies and investing aggressively in new technologies. BP and a growing number of oil majors are aiming for net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. Petrobras is even shooting for zero growth on emissions from their operations by 2025, which is only four years away.
Whether these companies can achieve these ambitious goals is still open to question. Their main business is finding, refining and selling the crude oil that environmentalists want to phase out. Cynics say that these efforts are just PR gestures. But smart oil companies are trying to transition into energy companies. BP, the world’s fifth-largest oil company, is investing more than $1 billion in offshore wind power. With moves like that, they have a long-term future in their core mission — energy — even if it’s quite different from their oily roots.
The good news for these companies is that their old business model will probably work for several more decades. The flip side of that, however, is that electric cars are eventually going to replace internal-combustion engines.
The percentage of electric vehicles in the market is still small, still less than 1% in the United States and most other countries. But some U.S. states and foreign nations have set target dates in the future when no new sales of gasoline-powered vehicles will be allowed.
California and Massachusets will ban new gas-powered vehicles by 2035. The state of Washington is beating that by five years — 2030. The United Kingdom also plans to ban sales of new gasoline vehicles by 2030, with Japan shooting for 2035 and France by 2040.
It’s even happening with companies that cause most of the consumption of oil — those that make cars and trucks. GM says it will stop producing gasoline- or diesel-powered vehicles by 2035, with Volvo aiming for 2030.
These are major, evolutionary changes in business that would have been unthinkable 10 years ago. The very companies that made billions from oil, either finding it or using it as gasoline, are planning to walk away from their legacy and become something else. Their new identity would be similar — green-energy production or electric vehicles — but it wouldn’t be the same.
Yet long-range planners in those industries realize that these changes cannot be put off. The nature of energy in the second half of this century will be different from the first half, and vastly different from the 20th century.
Eventually, virtually all electric power will come from the wind and sun — and possibly nuclear plants, which actually emit no carbon pollution despite their generally negative environmental image. Cars and trucks will be powered by batteries and recharged by renewable energy. Airplanes and ships may still use combustion engines because of their vast weight or demand for high speed, but maybe the next Elon Musk will figure out some form of green power for them.
In a way, you could say all of this began in 1970, when Wisconsin Sen. Gaylord Nelson was looking for a way to create something the fledgling environmental movement could unite around. That was only one year after the Cuyahoga River caught fire in Cleveland and polluters dumped stuff into air and water with little thought or consequences. The concept of recycling was virtually unknown.
Nelson was inspired by the anti-Vietnam War “teach-ins” that were taking place on college campuses around the United States. He chose April 22 because he figured enough university students would be on campus to show up and listen to the speakers. Fifty-one years later, that concept of setting aside one day to focus on the state of our planet has succeeded far more than the first participants could have imagined.
TTaschinger@BeaumontEnterprise.com
