Voluntary GHG Reductions: Early Experiences of Climate Leaders

摘要

Despite its rejection of Kyoto, climate change remains a hot issue in the U.S. As weawait possible future regulatory action, a plethora of voluntary GHG reduction programshave sprung up, including the U.S. EPA's Climate Leaders program. We interviewed ninelarge industrial companies that are participants in the Climate Leaders program. Thesecompanies have completed a corporate inventory of their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions,and most have completed the next required step - setting a five or ten year voluntaryreduction goal. Most of these companies already had a strong environmental policy and wereinvolved in efforts to reduce GHG emissions, including energy efficiency efforts. Most of thecompanies, especially those with good existing energy data, found that completing thecorporate GHG emissions inventory was not difficult or overly time-consuming. Althoughmany Climate Leaders partners have not yet set reduction goals, several have set aggressivegoals and have begun to implement significant projects to achieve them.