http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17969124/

Corporations find business case for going green
Global giants, from Wal-Mart to HP, see cost savings, other benefits

By Allison Linn

In recent months, environmental advocate Gwen Ruta has started feeling
like the proverbial Hollywood starlet who, after years of toiling in
bit parts, is suddenly being hailed as an overnight success story.

“All of a sudden, everybody wants you to be in their movie,” Ruta,
director of corporate partnerships with Environmental Defense, said
recently with a laugh.

It’s possible to take that statement quite literally — after all, the
environment was the star of the Oscar-winning “An Inconvenient Truth.”
But what is really exciting Ruta these days isn’t the buzz out of
Hollywood but the increasing interest across the country, on Wall
Street. For corporate executives, going green is becoming, if not
mainstream, at least more commonplace.
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Companies ranging from retailing titan Wal-Mart to investment firm
Goldman Sachs are jumping on the green bandwagon and pledging to make
tangible changes that go beyond the public relations-oriented
“greenwashing” of years past.

In another major shift, some big companies are even asking that they
be regulated on greenhouse gas emissions, arguing that it is the only
way for them to plan for how to deal with the rising threat of global
warming. A coalition of businesses and environmental groups earlier
this year formed a partnership called the U.S. Climate Action
Partnership aimed at doing just that.

Are corporations experiencing a sudden rash of social consciousness?
Not exactly. Instead, companies are increasingly realizing that going
green could be a new way for companies to save — or even make — more
green, as in money.

“The strategies that are being ... implemented by some of the leading-
edge companies are done to maximize profits and to mitigate risk,”
said Fred Wellington, senior financial analyst for the environmental
group World Resources Institute.

Still, the big surprise isn’t so much that companies are getting
involved in environmental issues, but what companies are doing it.
People expect companies like Whole Foods, Patagonia and REI to have
environmental initiatives; not only is it key to their public
relations efforts, it also makes good business sense for them to
preserve resources.

But DuPont? BP? Wal-Mart? These are companies that still raise the
hackles of environmentalists for some of their practices, yet are also
taking serious steps toward promoting things like solar power and
reducing greenhouse gas emissions. What exactly do they have to gain?

The answer, as always, lies in the bottom line.

Cost savings in energy savings
When Wal-Mart Stores Inc. pledges to significantly reduce energy use
at its stores, that translates into lower costs for running the same
business. It’s not the only money-saving environmental effort under
way at the famously stingy retailer.

DuPont, the giant chemical maker that once was considered among
America’s worst polluters, estimates that it has saved $3 billion from
a nearly two-decade effort to dramatically reduce carbon emissions.
Not surprisingly, the company is pushing for even more cuts.

And what about BP? The oil and gas giant will remain just that for a
long time, but it pays to be thinking about the future now. If oil
prices surge even higher, or supplies dwindle, people will still want
to heat their homes, drive their cars and turn on their lights. For a
company like BP to make it in that type of market, it might help to be
able to offer alternative products, such as solar or wind energy.

Pat Tiernan, Hewlett-Packard Co.’s vice president for social and
environmental responsibility, says that for the computer maker,
“sustainability is about making business sense.”

“We don’t do things just to be good. We don’t do things just to be,
for example, tree huggers,” Tiernan said. “We do select things that
have a brand value to them, but most of things that we do, it has to
make business sense.”

Environmental groups also are increasingly trying to show companies
the business case for environmental improvements.

Ruta, of Environmental Defense, said her group notes three major
potential benefits — cost savings from energy reductions, increased
market share from more competitive products, and managing the risks
associated with depending on fuels such as oil, which could spike in
price or become more heavily regulated.

Companies are starting to pay more attention.

“What we’re witnessing is some of the bigger, major corporations in
the United States understanding that these are fundamentally business
issues, and they’re developing business responses and strategies,”
said Wellington, of the World Resources Institute.
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