The Business Case For Not Waiting for Regulation
As energy prices have risen, many companies have chosen to
go ahead and implement energy savings measures. Over a 12-
year period in the 1980s, Dow’s Louisiana plant was able to save
enough energy implementing worker suggested savings
measures to add $110 million each year to the bottom line. Each
measure also reduced Dow’s carbon footprint.66
In 2000, as part of re-branding itself as “Beyond Petroleum,”
British Petroleum (BP) announced a corporate commitment to
reduce its emissions of GHGs. In 1997, in a speech at Stanford
University, California, group chief executive Lord Browne stated
that “BP accepted that the problem was potentially very serious
and that precautionary action was justified.” BP then announced
a target for 2010: that GHG emissions from its own operations
would be 10 percent lower than emissions in 1990. BP achieved