Moving the Corporate Behemoth

An excerpt:

Working at the Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI) for most of the 1990s, Lotspeich served
as team leader on a multi-year energy efficiency roject for STMicroelectronics, one of the
largest semiconductor companies in the world. With 45,000 employees in 31 countries and lose to $10 billion in annual revenue, ST is a corporate behemoth that has dared to redefine the modern industrial enterprise in sustainability terms.

There are other companies that have succeeded as well as ST in reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and other environmental impacts, but few – if any – have gone as far in creating a culture of sustainability.

It took ST less than five years to cut energy nputs by 30% per unit of value added and register a saving to the bottom line of $60 million. The company expects these trends to accelerate significantly, even though by 2010 it will be manufacturing 40 times as many chips as it did in 1990. It predicts saving 10 milliontonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions against business as usual between 1994 and 2010, and cumulative savings on energy expenditures of $900 million over the same period. It has also committed itself to becoming a zero net emitter of carbon by 2010. If other large corporations follow suit, the world stands a fighting chance of cost-effectively mitigating atmospheric carbon emissions, and avoiding climate catastrophe.