Climate 411

New Map: Green Jobs Ready to Take Off with Cap on Carbon Pollution

By Tony Kreindler / Published: March 3, 2009

Screen shot of one of the green job mapsOn Friday, we released a set of interactive maps showing 1,200 companies that are poised to benefit from a national cap on carbon pollution.

Jackie Roberts, our director of sustainable technologies, put it this way: “These maps tell the story of companies across the manufacturing heartland that will get new customers and create jobs with a cap on carbon.”

The maps were presented at the kick-off meeting of Vice President Joe Biden’s Middle Class Task Force. (Here’s a liveblog of the event from the White House web site.)

Reactions are coming in. Politico gives an overview of the political context, Care2 features a video interview of Jackie explaining where the map idea came from and how to use the maps. The folks over at Environmental Leader and Climate Biz weighed in, too.

If you have any comments on the maps, please post them here.

Posted in Policy / Comments are closed

Obama Asks Congress for Cap on Carbon Pollution

By Keith Gaby / Published: February 25, 2009

The president said:

But to truly transform our economy, protect our security, and save our planet from the ravages of climate change, we need to ultimately make clean, renewable energy the profitable kind of energy.

So I ask this Congress to send me legislation that places a market-based cap on carbon pollution and drives the production of more renewable energy in America.

Posted in Climate Change Legislation, News, Policy / Comments are closed

Three Companies Find Ways to Save Money and Resources

By Tom Murray / Published: February 20, 2009

This week, EDF and KKR announced the results of the first year of our green portfolio project.

In just twelve months, the three pilot companies saved:

  • $16 million dollars
  • 25,000 metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions
  • 3,000 tons of paper
  • 650 tons of solid waste

I posted a little more about these numbers on our Innovation Exchange blog:

For the past few weeks we’ve been on phone calls and in meetings with project teams from KKR, US Foodservice, PRIMEDIA, and Sealy to review and refine these numbers for today’s announcement.

Since the underlying premise for this project is “you manage what you measure” we had to get these numbers right. We did and the initial results are really impressive. Especially considering that they are adjusted to reflect only those business and environmental benefits that were achieved through improved efficiency from 2007 to 2008, as opposed to changes in volume or sales due to the current economic downturn.

And Julie Stofer, in our communications department, highlighted some of the blog reactions:

  • The guys over at Triple Pundit must have had a good chat with our friends at KKR — they were the first to report some details that didn’t make it into the press release, such as the inclusion of Sungard in the next round of implementation, and a projection of the number of companies that will be participating in the program by the end of the year (46).
  • The New York Times beat the Wall Street Journal’s Deal Journal blog to the punch,  getting a post featuring a pic of Henry Kravis on both Deal Book and Green, Inc. yesterday.
  • Marc Gunther called us “a bunch of young and likely underpaid environmentalists.” He agreed with our point that sometimes it just takes “looking at company operations through the fresh lens of sustainability” to achieve benefits that are good for the bottom line and the environment.
  • Gwen Ruta, the VP of our partnership program, also chatted with GreenBiz.com about how this project has just “scratched the surface of the efficiencies that can be achieved.”

I think these results demonstrate clearly the benefits that can be achieved through systematic environmental measurement and management, but it’s just the start. With over 1,000 private equity firms in the U.S. and far more portfolio companies, there’s a tremendous opportunity.

Tom Murray is the managing director responsible for the KKR partnership.

Posted in News / Comments are closed

Quick References: Cap and Trade vs. Carbon Tax

By Keith Gaby / Published: February 19, 2009

I posted earlier this month about quick reference sheets we’re putting together to cover points that we often discuss with with Hill staff and reporters. We just added some new ones, and I wanted to highlight a couple for you:

Again, I hope you also find these summaries useful, and we appreciate suggestions for additions and updates.

Posted in Policy / Read 3 Responses

“Surprise — Economists Agree!”

By Gernot Wagner / Published: February 17, 2009

If you care about the climate, climate economics, or how economists in general are portrayed in the media, read this piece from Slate: “Surprise—Economists Agree! A consensus is emerging about the costs of containing climate change. So why is no one writing that?”

Enter Eric Pooley: good thing someone is. Here’s a longer blog post about Pooley’s eminently readable academic paper on the same topic.

Originally posted on Environmental Economics. 

Posted in Economics / Comments are closed

Climate Policy Spurs Innovation

By Gernot Wagner / Published: February 9, 2009

EDF has been saying for years that the best way to invent new, greener energy technology is to put a cap on carbon pollution. That approach worked to combat acid rain in the 1990s, and a new study provides the best evidence yet that it’s working for climate policy, too.

The study compared countries that ratified the Kyoto Protocol and ones that didn’t, and guess which group had more new green tech patents?

Chart comparing patents in countries that did and did not ratify the Kyoto Protocal.

I posted an overview of the findings, including a couple more charts and additional analysis I got from the authors, over at Environmental Economics.

Posted in Economics, Policy / Read 4 Responses