At RILA’s CEO event, Leadership Forum 2008, top industry executives had the opportunity to discuss key issues facing the industry, including sustainability. The following article summarizes a panel discussion moderated by Dan Esty, director of the Center for Environmental Law and Policy at Yale, with the following executives: Sally Jewel, CEO of REI; Thomas Hellman, retired executive vice president of compliance services at Limited Brands; and Mike Polk, president of Unilever America.
In the last two years, the topic of sustainability has moved beyond corporate and social responsibility initiatives to become a central business issue for the retail industry. Noting that “we have a new world of green business in front of us,” Dan Esty, director of the Center for Environmental Law and Policy at Yale
University, explored a number of factors “that have led companies big and small, in the new economy and old industry, to suddenly have to bear down much harder on a cluster of environmental and related energy issues.”
One of the most immediate and visible drivers of this focus is rising energy costs. “Whatever you thought three or four years ago about how to run your logistics, how much to invest in heating, AC and lighting, what to put in the way of insulation in the roof, what kind of glass to put in your facilities—that all has to be redone, because the answers today, at the prices we’re facing and are likely to face, is going to be totally different,” said Esty.
Increasing regulation is also a key driver, with a growing emphasis on carbon controls and carbon-trading systems. Such initiatives are already moving forward in Europe, said Esty, and “in the U.S., the odds are now overwhelming that we will have action on this issue in the next couple years.” Already, he added, 27 states have some type of climate change related plans in place, and more than 600 U.S. city mayors have made commitments to the Kyoto protocols.
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