How Do You Compare with Your Energy Neighbor?
The list of what is environmentally challenging and not quite right with our world is a little daunting and becoming more so by the minute if you really stop to take stock.
Sustainability is a tough word to define; it means different things to different people, including those within the same industry and indeed the same company. For Petrobras America’s President Alberto Guimaraes, “it would be a responsibility in all relationships. … A company has to be able to grant a conscientious growth, to deliver to its customers what they expect in any environment, in any type of economy, in any type of a standard of life. … It is very much up to the company to be technologically advanced, to develop a culture of technology.”
For years we as a global community have worked, to a certain extent, somewhat independently from our neighbors in the environmental arena — not really cognizant that emissions in Asia’s air cause weather changes and affect other countries by way of wind currents. We haven’t realized the need for industrialization as a means to drive the economy and thus workforce has been pumping (albeit relatively small amounts over long periods of time) noxious emissions into systems of the very people on whom we depend to keep the economy and workforce moving forward.
With the approaching change in the U.S. Administration, the world is perhaps more focused than ever on the growing list of energy related buzzwords and is itching to see the new ideas, and, inevitably, challenges, a change in scenery will bring to the energy space. How will it all play out?
Going Green
The word is out there — we are “going green.” More and more companies are rallying behind the items on the ever-growing “what’s-environmentally-wrong-with-the-world-and-how-can-we-make-a-difference” list.
Shell’s David Sexton has noted his company believes its greatest priorities are ” helping to meet future global demand for energy and playing a full roll in tackling carbon emissions. There is no doubt that by the year 2100, the world will have a radically different energy mix. Our charge is building the bridge from where we are now to where we want to be at the turn of the next century.”
For Thomas O’Malley, Petroplus chairman, ethanol is a thorn in the nation’s political side. “Ethanol is one of the clear culprits” for the current U.S. economic problems, and it is doing little to help the environment and global fuel supply, he has said. However, It is not all doom and gloom for the U.S. ethanol market as he’s noted the European biodiesel policies are causing similar problems.
BP, also a player in the alternative energy arena, believes demand will increase and that it is the future to which the global community needs to work.
“Demand for alternatives will continue to climb,” Sarah Howell, BP environmental and corporate communications director, has said. “BP believes that the U.S. market will continue to grow as the public continues to demand cleaner and reliable sources of power.”
Do you have a model or belief about what to do to reduce our environmental footprint before it gets too deep? What corporate, social and individual responsibility do we have and how can we work together?
Where do you fit in this mix?
