Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
than its current system for predicting whether a customer will enjoy a film. This does
not replace corporate R&D but may encourage 'ways to spur innovation crucial to
improving how well we - and our children and grandchildren - live' (Wessel, 2007).
Drawing on the work of Dunphy
et al
. (2003), Kemp
et al
. (2003) have added
four value concepts to the three waves a business organization may pass through to
become fully sustainable. Kemp
et al
. state that those activities designed to control
business impacts and risks
conserve
value and can be seen in any well-managed com-
pany. Those activities that generate additional revenue or improve cost-efficiency
create
value. There are, of course, also actions that may
destroy
or
limit
business
value. At the final stage, companies pioneer alternative interpretations of busi-
ness value and success, and aim to develop restorative business practices that
nurture natural and social capital. The task is challenging, but many corporations
are on this journey, with many in the second but few, apart from Interface, in the
third wave.
Box 7.1
Plan B update: creating new jobs, cutting carbon
emissions in the US
The US goal for Detroit should be not merely to save it but to make it the world
leader in producing high-efficiency plug-in hybrid cars. Replacing one gas-guzzling
SUV with a plug-in hybrid will, over the car's lifetime, reduce oil imports by 200
barrels, saving $20,000 of oil imports. Such an initiative multiplied across the fleet
would keep hundreds of billions of dollars at home for job-creating U.S. investments.
In terms of job creation, investment in retrofitting buildings creates more than
seven times as many jobs as a similar investment in coal-fired power plants. One
of the early leaders is Houston, which plans to retrofit each of its 271 government
buildings, thus simultaneously reducing energy use and operational costs. As Houston
Mayor Bill White says, “It makes good business sense.”
Building the new energy economy creates jobs in the construction of wind farms
or the retrofitting of buildings, and also indirectly in the supply lines that provide, for
example, the parts for wind turbines or the thermally efficient windows for retrofitting.
These investments also generate jobs outside the energy sector. For example, the
construction of a wind farm in a Great Plains community generates jobs in local
businesses such as restaurants and home improvement outlets.
The government's role in this vast job creation initiative is to use public funds as
incentives to leverage far greater investments of private capital. We estimate that
$100 billion of federal funds used strategically over the next 12 years would leverage
$400 billion of private capital investment. If this $500 billion is allocated evenly
between renewable energy development (wind, solar, and geothermal) and retrofitting,
and if every two jobs created in the energy sector creates one job elsewhere, this
would quickly generate 600,000 new jobs that would last through 2020.
Source: Lester R. Brown (2008) Creating New Jobs, Cutting Carbon Emissions, and
Reducing Oil Imports by Investing in Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency (
www.earth-
