Sustainability Media Room

The Philadelphia Inquirer, February 15, 2007

A Model of Corporate Action
By Cynthia Henry, Editorial Writer

DuPont has cut emissions that cause climate change 72%. And leads the call for a national pollution plan.

Businesses don't often lobby government for tougher environmental rules. Usually, they fight (or sue) over federal regulation.

But one voice, DuPont, based in Wilmington, leads a corporate chorus calling for a national crackdown on climate change. Forward-looking businesses realize they can't slow global warming alone. They need government to drive technology innovation and maintain economic growth, while slashing tailpipe and smokestack pollution, the leading contributors to global warming.

Not that DuPont hasn't been trying. It crafted one of the best voluntary efforts in the nation - beyond the Bush administration's wildest hopes.

"DuPont understood almost before anyone else that climate change was happening, and that affected what they produced or the way they produced it," said Eileen Claussen, president of the Pew Center on Global Climate Change.

Since 1991, DuPont has cut corporate emissions contributing to global warming 72 percent, saving itself more than $3 billion in energy costs. Along with other corporate leaders, such as BP, Shell and Alcoa, it models best behavior for businesses just writing environmental plans, like Wal-Mart.

President Bush visited DuPont the day after the State of the Union in January. He saw future biofuels bubbling in beakers, photovoltaic panels generating electricity from the sun, and fuel cells that could transform military operations.

He studied DuPont's 21st-century goals: Through partnerships with the Department of Energy and like-minded companies such as BP, DuPont vows to double R&D on products such as biobutanol, a higher-yielding, more transportable renewable fuel than ethanol. It's creating plant-based chemicals like Bio-PDO to replace petroleum in polymers, detergents, cosmetics and antifreeze.

By 2015, DuPont vows to slash water consumption, improve fleet fuel efficiency, and cut cancer-causing emissions at its plants. If the past is any indication, DuPont will succeed.

The company's focus on atmospheric science dates to the ozone depletion in the 1980s caused by chlorofluorocarbons, one of the company's main products. DuPont scientists scrambled to create CFC alternatives to save the Earth - and the company's bottom line.

They sought the same business/environmental twofer by pioneering global-warming mitigation. Beyond reducing its corporate "carbon footprint," DuPont diversified its product line, shedding divisions such as nylon and pharmaceuticals, to focus on materials to reduce greenhouse gases. Big winners include Tyvek® house wraps for energy efficiency and Sorona® carpet fibers, which soon will come from plants.

Looking to adapt its array of materials to new uses, DuPont constantly asks: "What else?" and "What next?" For the world to temper climate change, more companies need that mind-set.

DuPont's biggest challenge may be motivating Congress.

On Tuesday, CEO Chad Holliday lobbied the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, whose former chairman, James M. Inhofe (R., Okla.), considered global warming "a hoax." New chairwoman Barbara Boxer (D., Calif.) promises to give fair hearing to the legislative options emerging. As a pioneer in carbon mitigation, DuPont deserves a seat at the policy table and credit for progress to date.

"Voluntary efforts alone will not solve the problem," Holliday told senators. "We need sound policy that takes broad, coordinated action across the entire economy."

He testified on behalf of DuPont, but also as a member of the newly formed United States Climate Action Partnership, comprising 10 diverse companies and three environmental groups favoring emission regulation. It's one of several sustainable business roundtables DuPont has joined over the years.

"Each year we delay action to control emissions increases the risk of unavoidable consequences that could necessitate even steeper reductions in the future, at potentially greater economic cost and social disruption," says USCAP's position paper.

The partnership, whose members include an oil company and utilities, urges Congress to enact mandatory, market-based reductions of greenhouse-gas emissions from industrial plants, cars and trucks, and commercial and residential buildings.

That's the logical, overdue response to this month's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report. More than 1,200 scientists from 113 countries agreed that global warming was "unequivocal," likely to accelerate in the 21st century, and adversely affect weather, drought, rainfall and sea level.

America can no longer depend only on the DuPonts to initiate change. Mitigation is possible, but not without a governmental push.

"DuPont has shown that it's possible to do well by doing good," said Phil Clapp, president of National Environmental Trust. "If the Bush administration and Congress had demonstrated as much commitment, we'd be well on our way to solving the problem of global warming."

Cynthia Henry covers energy and the environment for The Inquirer Editorial Board