Economics: Enviro USA: American businesses stampede to greener standards

MSNBC carries a report by Senior Writer Allison Linn, "Corporations find business case for going green -- Global giants, from Wal-Mart to HP, see cost savings, other benefits" (Apr18,2k7).

Companies ranging from retailing titan Wal-Mart to investment firm Goldman Sachs are jumping on the green bandwagon and pledging to make tangible changes that go beyond the public relations-oriented “greenwashing” of years past.

In another major shift, some big companies are even asking that they be regulated on greenhouse gas emissions, arguing that it is the only way for them to plan for how to deal with the rising threat of global warming. A coalition of businesses and environmental groups earlier this year formed a partnership called the U.S. Climate Action Partnership aimed at doing just that.

Are corporations experiencing a sudden rash of social consciousness? Not exactly. Instead, companies are increasingly realizing that going green could be a new way for companies to save — or even make — more green, as in money.

“The strategies that are being ... implemented by some of the leading-edge companies are done to maximize profits and to mitigate risk,” said Fred Wellington, senior financial analyst for the environmental group World Resources Institute.

Still, the big surprise isn’t so much that companies are getting involved in environmental issues, but what companies are doing it. People expect companies like Whole Foods, Patagonia and REI to have environmental initiatives; not only is it key to their public relations efforts, it also makes good business sense for them to preserve resources.

But DuPont? BP? Wal-Mart? These are companies that still raise the hackles of environmentalists for some of their practices, yet are also taking serious steps toward promoting things like solar power and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. What exactly do they have to gain?

The answer, as always, resides in the bottom line.

Do click-up Ms Linn's long article to read in its entirety. With the online article comes a message board on which to "Speak Out" on the surround of issues -- Going green: social consciousness or profits? (note how "consciousness" has replaced "conscience"--so the issue is not the fostering of a wide ethos of compassion as in Christianity and Buddhism; here what is functioning is not an ethos of compassion but business strategy based distinctly in corporate purposes. The frontier of litigation here will turn on whether a business corporation can go expensively green to the (temporary) lessened-profitability to shareholders who bawt stocks on the market in order to maximize their own individuals profits based on stock ownership. It will be quite interesting to she what Prof Bainbridge, authority on corporate governance, will have to say on these interesting matters.

Hat Tip: ChristianBusinessDaily.com (Apr19,2k7).