Cool Planet

by George Milner
Senior VP – Energy, Environmental, and
Government  Affairs, Mohawk Fine Papers

There is growing media attention to the number of corporations quitting the U.S. Chamber of Commerce over the group’s stand on climate change. Our company recently made the decision to terminate our membership because we felt the organization was taking an untenable position that was inconsistent with the philosophy of Mohawk Fine Paper. Frankly we believe that the Chamber’s strong opposition to legislation aimed at reducing carbon in the atmosphere is just plain out of touch with the experience of corporations across the nation who have successfully cut their emissions, reduced their energy consumption and as a result are riding out the recession in a better position than their competitors.

As a company in a traditional smokestack industry we find that many observers are surprised to learn that we have a long history of sustainability, of reducing our environmental footprint, long before it became fashionable.  It is one of the areas that sets us apart from others in the papermaking business, and it goes back to the O’Connor family that founded the company in 1931. One of our five core beliefs is the pursuit of the highest standards of environmental stewardship and sustainable practices.

Over the years Mohawk has undertaken a number of pragmatic steps to increase energy efficiency, conserve resources and eliminate waste. More recently we have sought out independent advice from the non-profit groups like CERES and Clean Air-Cool Planet for recommendations on greening our power purchases, eliminating carbon in the supply chain, developing messaging to key stakeholders, purchasing offsets and advice concerning the risks and opportunities of federal legislation.

Today as a bill to address climate change emerges in Washington, we are in turn helping our Congressmen and Senators understand the complex issues faced by energy intensive businesses and the need for policy that levels the playing field and provides incentives to companies who develop and implement pragmatic solutions while addressing the root cause of climate change. Congress needs to demonstrate leadership to other nations and we believe that legislation is a more effective way to deal with this crisis than having the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency regulate emissions through the Clean Air Act.

Mohawk favors an economy-wide approach regulating carbon at its most efficient point, coupled with a well designed cap-and-trade system which would include the price ceiling and price floor that Senators Kerry and Graham mentioned in their October 10, 2009 New York Times op-ed to protect businesses and individuals against price spikes. We would also favor returning the revenues of such a cap-and-trade system to consumers, believing that is most fair to consumers as well as helpful to the overall economy.

In our industry, progress is incremental. Whether it’s investment in modern equipment/machinery to meet the needs of our customer base, or compliance with the Clean Water and Clean Air Acts, the paper mills that survive today in the U.S. have done so by making smart decisions.  As an industry leader we see the move toward taking responsibility for our environmental footprint as a natural evolution in assuring that we will continue to be competitive on a global scale. Over the past decade we have achieved double-digit reductions in energy consumption per ton of product produced.  The subsequent savings finance continuing investments in water and energy conservation, as well as manufacturing efficiency.

We’ve demonstrated to ourselves that making more with less is indeed a self-sustaining process.  Mohawk Paper is encouraged by the growing support for climate legislation from the business community, and by the willingness of firms to reach out to their elected representatives on both sides of the aisle to come together on a measure that would send a clear message to the market, provide incentives to transformational technology and help bring about the behavior change needed to move America toward a low-carbon future.

Mohawk Fine Papers is North America’s leading producers of printing and writing papers, with two manufacturing facilities based just north of Albany, NY and a third in Hamilton, Ohio.

This entry was posted on November 10, 2009 at 12:44 pm and is filed under business, Carbon Management, Policy. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments.

Tags: cap and trade, corporate carbon emissions, corporate responsibility, legislation, Mohawk, Mohawk Fine Paper, sustain, sustainability, sustainable business, US Chamber of Commerce