Positive Power of Principled Profit
Volume 3, Number 3 — November, 2005

Positive Power Spotlight: IBM Slashes Carbon Emission by 1.28 million tons, Saves $115MM in Fuel Costs

In the two-plus years I've been writing this newsletter, I've mostly focused on small, creative companies. But I strongly believe that big companies, too, can benefit from incorporating social and environmental consciousness into their business model.

So when I stumbled on a press release from World Wildlife Fund and the Center for Energy and Climate Solutions, announcing that IBM, which participates in their Climate Savers program, has cut more than 1.28 million tons of CO2 emissions and saved $115,000,000 in fuel costs since becoming involved in 1998, I thought it was worth bringing to your attention.

And this is a real reduction. It doesn't count any savings through restructuring, just clear and verifiable emissions and energy reductions from retooling along more earth-friendly lines. It's like eliminating 516,000,000 vehicle miles.

Wayne Balta, vice president for corporate environmental affairs and product safety at IBM, noted that "While some assume that cutting CO2 emissions costs businesses mo ney, we have found just the opposite. Addressing climate change makes business sense...When you consider the significant environmental benefits also achieved, cutting emissions is a win-win proposition."

The complete press release has a lot of fascinating details, and can be seen at http://www.greenbiz.com/news/news_third.cfm?NewsID=28882

Bravo! As big companies and small companies both realize that the environment rests on their shoulders, and that it's cheaper to be more energy efficient, there will be no need for more wars over oil.

And if this topic interests you, you'll find a lot of good reading in the Sustainability section of Down to Business magazine http://www.frugalmarketing.com/dtb/dtb.shtml#sustain I particularly recommend the article, Amory Lovins: Reinventing Human Enterprise for Sustainability.

Another Recommended Book: The Company We Keep: Reinventing Small Business for People, Community, and Place, by John Abrams (Chelsea Green, 2005)

A lot of the business integrity literature is written by academics or by owners of relatively large concerns; this one is from the trenches. Abrams is a carpenter, founder and co-owner of a homebuilding business on Martha's Vineyard, a resort island in Massachusetts

The business has survived for over 20 years, and has been collectively owned by its workers since 1987.

Abrams struggles with the meaning of craft, his sense of place, the tension between wanting to build the finest possible home and the desire to serve the greatest good. Coupled with Abrams' insights from his own wide-ranging reading, it makes for quite a journey.

Abrams believes in "cathedral thinking": looking at the long-term view that the task he starts may not be completed in his lifetime.

We see his own journey from being in charge to sharing control, which he says "has the greatest potential to cause the greatest returns." (p. 44)

Questioning the conventional grow-or-die mentality, he looks at the difference between growth and development, and takes pride in turning down the "wrong" work. And a lot of it is about trust, perhaps summed up in this quote: "Wherever you work, if you believe in what you do and are committed to principles of quality and cooperation, you can't afford *not* to choose the work you are willing to do and the clients you are comfortable serving. We have found that when we elect to work with people we don't trust, we are likely to lose both money and sleep." (p. 92)

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http://www.chelseagreen.com/

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