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Global Warming Pressure Heats Up for Companies
 New carbon emission regulatory
regimes are coming
soon — and they will
likely carry significant
costs, said business and academic
experts who spoke
recently at the first annual
Conference / Workshop
on Business and the
Environment at Wharton.
The event was organized
by leaders from
Wharton’s Initiative for
Global Environmental
Leadership (IGEL), a new
global center on business
and the environment that
brings together Wharton
and Penn faculty with business,
NGO, and government
officials to discuss
and research issues of business
and the environment.
Wharton professor Eric
Orts, the founding director
of IGEL and conference
head, said companies have
many motivations for wanting
to neutralize the effects
of greenhouse gases on climate
change. A common
view is that companies always
apply a “net present
value analysis” or profit-oriented
view in evaluating the environmental effects of a
new product or service. But
this isn’t always the case, he
said, noting that some companies
take voluntary steps
that might relate only indirectly,
if at all, to a costbenefit
analysis.
What came through
clearly at the conference,
Orts said, is that the business
community is serious
about tackling global
warming. “I think that only
a few large businesses believe
that climate change is
an issue that they can ignore — or lobby against.”
For information about
the IGEL, see its website at http://environment.wharton.upenn.edu. For a link
to Knowledge@Wharton’s
full story on the conference,
see http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/
article.cfm?articleid=1952.
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