The New Business Climate

The document argues that proactive action on climate change can reduce costs, mitigate risks, and create competitive advantages. It outlines short-term strategies like emission tracking and 'no-regrets' energy efficiency, and long-term investments in clean technology and carbon trading. It emphasizes 'whole-systems thinking' to achieve radical resource efficiency and provides case studies of companies like BP, Dow, and Interface that have integrated sustainability into their business models.

• Proactive 'early action' to reduce emissions allows companies to influence future regulatory structures in favor of flexible, market-based regulations rather than rigid command-and-control approaches.
• Implementing 'no-regrets' energy efficiency measures in buildings, factories, and vehicles often provides sufficient cost savings to justify implementation on an economic basis alone.
• A least-cost emission reduction strategy involves implementing all internal measures that cost less than the market price of carbon offsets and purchasing offsets for the remaining requirements.
• Radical resource efficiency, seeking 75–90 percent improvements, is achievable through 'whole-systems thinking' early in the design process, which optimizes the entire system rather than sub-optimizing components in isolation.
• Distributed generation (DG) using small turbines or fuel cells can provide high-reliability power and heat, reducing GHG emissions compared to centralized power generation.
• The 'payback gap' is a significant barrier to energy efficiency, where managers demand extremely fast paybacks (e.g., 1.5 years) due to perceived risk, ignoring the long-term return on investment.
• Performance contracting allows companies to finance energy-efficiency projects by using actual energy savings to pay for equipment, installation, and maintenance services via an Energy Service Company (ESCo).
• BP Amoco achieved its goal of reducing emissions by 10 percent below 1990 levels eight years ahead of its 2010 target at a negative net cost (a profit) using an internal carbon trading system.
• Dow Chemical's 'Waste Reduction Always Pays' (WRAP) initiative demonstrated that harvesting collective employee knowledge for efficiency opportunities can yield high returns, with some projects averaging a 204 percent annual return between 1983 and 1993.
• Interface Inc. created the Solenium carpet line, certified as 'climate neutral' by the Climate Neutral Network, by combining solar energy, improved product design, and external carbon offsets.
• Royal Dutch Shell implemented the Shell Tradable Emissions Permit System (STEPS) to achieve least-cost abatement across its business units and integrated a carbon penalty ($5/mtC to 2010, $20/mtC thereafter) into financial projections for new projects.
• Shaklee Corporation became the first climate-neutral company in the U.S. by balancing internal demand-side management with external offsets, including rural solar electrification in India and Sri Lanka.
• DuPont reduced its GHG emissions by 63 percent below 1990 levels as of early 2002, largely through investments in fluorochemical and N2O emission reduction.
• ABB focuses on the market for distributed energy generation, investing in high-voltage direct current (HVDC) transmission systems that carry up to five times more power with 20–30 percent less energy loss than conventional systems.

APA

Swisher, J., Parrot, K., Gage, P., Page, C., Wilkinson, R., & Payne, D. (2002). The New Business Climate. RMI. https://rmi.org/app/uploads/2017/05/RMI_Document_Repository_Public-Reprts_E02-17_NewBusinessClimate-.pdf

Chicago

Swisher, Joel, Kate Parrot, Peter Gage, Christina Page, Robert Wilkinson, and David Payne. The New Business Climate. RMI, 2002. https://rmi.org/app/uploads/2017/05/RMI_Document_Repository_Public-Reprts_E02-17_NewBusinessClimate-.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Swisher |first1=Joel |last2=Parrot |first2=Kate |last3=Gage |first3=Peter |last4=Page |first4=Christina |last5=Wilkinson |first5=Robert |last6=Payne |first6=David |title=The New Business Climate |publisher=RMI |date=2002 |url=https://rmi.org/app/uploads/2017/05/RMI_Document_Repository_Public-Reprts_E02-17_NewBusinessClimate-.pdf |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{swisher2002new, author = {Swisher, Joel and Parrot, Kate and Gage, Peter and Page, Christina and Wilkinson, Robert and Payne, David}, title = {{The New Business Climate}}, institution = {RMI}, year = {2002}, url = {https://rmi.org/app/uploads/2017/05/RMI_Document_Repository_Public-Reprts_E02-17_NewBusinessClimate-.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }