Nestle – greenandprofitable.com

What I Told the DT Administration: Business Case for Paris Accord

Here’s a letter I wrote to US Cabinet Secretaries Tillerson, Perry, and Pruitt (State, Energy, EPA), and to Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker (with a different subject line). Please write your own letter. You are welcome to model mine. Click to send an email directly to Pruitt and Perry and link to Tillerson’s contact form.

"I wrote a letter to the US government" (picture of handwriting) — “I wrote a letter to the US government”

As a business owner, I ask that you maintain the US’s role in the Paris Climate Accord. The Paris Accord marks a wonderful opportunity for American business to make headway against the widespread perception that European businesses are more environmentally focused. American businesses cannot win back the international market share they’ve lost to environmentally forward-thinking European companies if our own government is seen as sabotaging progress. It would not even shock me if, should the US pull out, activists start organizing boycotts on all US-based companies. Boycotts like this are economically disastrous for the US, just as similar boycotts created enormous pressure on South Africa during the apartheid years and are now beginning to affect the economy of Israel over its presence in Palestinian territories.

I am a consultant to green and social change companies, and I see the positive bottom-line impacts of meeting or exceeding climate goals over and over again. Industries have found that climate mitigation, done right, lowers costs and boosts revenues, thus increasing profitability. I recently attended a conference with speakers from Nestlé, IBM, Google, Pirelli, Coca-Cola, Paypal, clothing manufacturer VFC, and many other global corporations, and the message from every speaker was about the bottom-line benefit of greening their company. This is why companies as diverse as Monsanto, Intel, Dupont and General Mills are among the 1000 companies that signed a public letter this winter urging the US to stay in the Paris agreement.

Progress on climate will also have beneficial effects in the wallets of ordinary Americans–because it will improve health. Reducing asthma and other carbon-related diseases means more discretionary spending and thus an economic boost.

Finally, the long-term picture of addressing climate change in a meaningful way means the creation of hundreds of thousands of new jobs in the energy, manufacturing, and agriculture/food sectors as well as a more livable world for our children and grandchildren. If anything, the Paris targets should be seen as a starting point. And if the US embraces this fully and uses its technological leadership, it will create market opportunities around the world for US companies selling the technologies to make this transition.

Sincerely,

Shel Horowitz – “The Transformpreneur”(sm)
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Watch (and please share) my TEDx Talk,
“Impossible is a Dare: Business for a Better World”
https://www.ted.com/tedx/events/11809

Contact me to bake in profitability while addressing hunger,
poverty, war, and catastrophic climate change

Twitter: @shelhorowitz

* First business ever to be Green America Gold Certified
* Inducted into the National Environmental Hall of Fame

https://goingbeyondsustainability.com
https://transformpreneur.com
mailto:shel@greenandprofitable.com * 413-586-2388
Award-winning, best-selling author of 10 books. Latest:
Guerrilla Marketing to Heal the World (co-authored with Jay Conrad Levinson)

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Head of Nestlé Understands Water Scarcity. Do You?

Fascinating profile of Peter Brabeck, Chair of Nestlé, and his crusade for world-wide water conservation and water sustainability. Especially fascinating since Nestlé’s water bottling approach has often gotten the company in trouble with water rights and environmental activists, and has occasionally brought it to court. (In my eighth book, Guerrilla Marketing Goes Green, I discuss Nestlé being hauled into court in Canada by green activists, on greenwashing/misleading advertising charges.)

These days, Brabeck is saying that 5 liters of water to drink, and 25 for other personal needs, should be the daily right of every human being. But he also says that direct human consumption is the smallest portion of water consumed by humans—just 1.5 percent. The energy and agriculture sectors use far more (and he didn’t even discuss industry in general). He is particularly troubled by “unconventional oil” (such as tar sands), which he says consumes up to 6 liters of water for every liter of fuel, compared with just a tenth of a liter to produce a liter of oil conventionally. Water conservation, he says, is essential—and thus we shouldn’t be using those water-hogging technologies. Of course, there are MANY other environmental arguments against tar-sands oil, in addition to water conservation!

And he notes that when he was born 68 years ago, the world had 2.7 billion people and stayed well within its water budget, using only 40 percent of the renewable water. But now, with 7 billion people on the planet, we’re already exceeding what the planet can renew—and we’re heading to 10 billion.

Note: just because in our daily lives our water consumption far less than what industry and agriculture use, please don’t take that as a license to squander. As individuals, we still have a responsibility to be frugal with the world’s water. Even something as simple as brushing our teeth can be done with about 95 percent less water, just by not letting the water run the whole time—voila, instant water conservation. Wet the brush, turn off the water, repeat as necessary. Use the same principle when washing hands, washing dishes, etc. And when it makes sense (as it does in most of the US, Canada, and Europe), use filtered tap water instead of bottled water. Many people don’t realize how much water consumption is involved in the bottling process—wasting,often, up to three times as much water as actually goes in the bottle.

Go ahead and read the interview. If you’re skeptical about Nestlé, that’s OK. So am I. But I think there’s a lot of wisdom in Brabeck’s thinking, and a wake-up call to the world.

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