E2 Strategy for 2005

E2 was founded to address the problem that, outside of special interest groups related to specific industries, there was no organization to represent the "Business Voice for the Environment." As business people who recognized that sound environmental policy is also good economic policy, our goal was to recruit a national network of business leaders and professionals who would collectively give us the credibility to deliver this message both to the general public and to elected officials.

By simultaneously building a group of financial supporters for NRDC, we could add value to their outstanding record of success and sound, reasoned research. We wanted to avoid overhead - and to this day, E2 is an informal organization, working primarily through email and the web. We collect no money (our members contribute directly to NRDC) and we don't even have a checkbook! Time and computer facilities are all donated. NRDC's development group provides administrative support and NRDC's environmental staff guides projects that we mutually agree are suitable for E2 to pursue.

Year One: In our first year, we focused on building membership and generating financial support for NRDC. We also developed our system to support E2Alerts - voluntary membership endorsement for specific legislative or regulatory issues. Both the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times wrote articles about our unique approach. We ended the year with over 140 members.

Year Two: In our second year, NRDC's Climate Center suggested that we team up to help pass California Assembly Member Fran Pavley's climate change bill - California AB1493, that set a decreasing limit on the amount of global warming pollutants that can be emitted from passenger vehicles in California. Details of the campaign can be found at E2 California Clean Cars Campaign . E2 was the primary business voice for the bill through the work of more than 100 E2 members. Governor Davis signed the bill into law in July 2002 and asked E2 to speak at the signing ceremony. We closed our second year with 240 members and substantial proof that we could make a difference.

Year Three: With success in California, E2 focused on expanding our national presence. We were fortunate to find wonderful members in New York and later New England who helped us grow nationally. We began making E2 delegation trips to visit state legislators in California, New York and Massachusetts. We brought a group of members from five different states to Washington, D.C.

E2 members provided some of the seed funding for two NDRC national efforts: (1) NRDC's Advocacy Center, which works out of NRDC's Washington, D.C. office to coordinate the organization's national advocacy work and (2) NRDC's Oceans Initiative, which was seeking a business plan to develop a national strategy to revamp the failed legislative and administrative approach to ocean protection. We finished the year with over 380 members in 20 states.

Year Four: During our fourth year, we focused both on establishing visibility within Washington, D.C. and developing our own body of research to support our message on the economic value of environmental policies and the economic potential of the Cleantech market. (The Cleantech market is comprised of goods and services that compete with existing products on price and performance AND use significantly less natural resources or have a significantly lower environmental impact.)

In our second annual trip to Washington, we met with almost 11% of Congress; helped support and deliver state-specific economic analyses for 15 states showing the economic benefits of passing the McCain/Lieberman Climate Stewardship Act (available by request, please contact Christine Koronides at ckoronides@nrdc.org); and produced our first Cleantech jobs report, Creating the California Cleantech Cluster. We also worked with the nation's first and third largest pension funds (CalPERS and CalSTRS) and the California State Treasurer's office to develop a strategy for investments in Cleantech, the Green Wave Initiative.

As we have grown, several E2 members have assumed responsibility for major programs allowing us to expand our work (read more about volunteers and their projects in our September Newsletter). We closed our fourth year with 550 members in 22 states. During these four years, our members collectively donated over $5,000,000 to support the work of NRDC.

While we will continue to focus on growing our membership, supporting NRDC, and advocating for specific issues at the state and federal level; E2 is organizing multi-year, national campaigns on three major topics: Cleantech, climate change and oceans.

Many of our environmental challenges can be met through better technology - enabling products that can compete on price and performance and also have better environmental properties. Examples of Cleantech growth areas are alternative and renewable energy generation, improved energy distribution, new car and other transportation technologies, water purification systems, industrial emissions controls and testing environmentally sound consumer products and green building technologies.

Like all industries, Cleantech needs to stand independently on its own economic merits. Cleantech also serves an important public policy role, so working to accelerate its growth has important social benefits. Our work in this area will focus on pension fund investments, performance based environmental standards and the analysis of the resulting economic benefits. In addition, government purchases and buildings can take advantage of the lower costs associated with Cleantech products.

Because pension funds such as CalPERS and CalSTRS are so large, they carry enormous market weight. If those funds see the financial potential in the emerging Cleantech industries, they can influence others to look more closely at Cleantech. The actual investment decisions, of course, will be based solely on economic merits, but the visibility helps the industry. We have seen this even in the few months since California Treasurer Angelides' "GreenWave" announcement last February (see E2's February Newsletter). The pension funds are also major players in real estate. Growth in green buildings and "smart growth" strategies will result if the pension funds understand the higher economic returns possible from green development. E2 members in New York are currently working with that state's administration on a similar initiative.

Environmental performance standards are important. They provide enforceable rules for how natural resources are used but don't specify or endorse any single technology. Examples include levels of emissions from vehicles, and energy efficiency standards. E2's goal is to encourage the adoption of appropriately stringent standards, and to promote the development and deployment of technologies that make such standards cost effective.

Lastly, we want to continue to show that environmental policy can be an economic stimulant. It is important to show the economic growth and job growth potential coming from the Cleantech industry.

Our goal for addressing climate change is to reduce the amount of carbon-based fuels we use for electricity generation and transportation before the climate warms by more than another two degrees. If we exceed two degrees, it is very likely that the polar ice caps will begin melting at a faster pace than they are currently and the planet will be drastically altered. Our strategies include advocating for energy efficiency and fuel economy, increased use of electricity from renewable sources (see Business Leaders in Colorado Show Support for Renewable Energy below), and moving our transportation fuels away from petroleum-based fuels and towards biofuels (renewable fuels made from plant and waste sources).

Biofuels for transportation will be our newest area of focus because no matter how fuel-efficient vehicles become, if they are still burning oil products they will be adding global warming pollution to the atmosphere. Biofuels consist of:

- Biogas - gaseous fuels (including hydrogen) made from crop or animal waste.
- Biodiesel - diesel replacement made from the oils in plants or waste oil from food and industrial usages
- Ethanol - gasoline replacement made from the starch, sugar or cellulose in plant material.

E2 believes that in the coming years, new technologies will produce fuels that will result in low or neutral green house pollution - making biofuels economically viable. We anticipate that the California Air Resources Board will evaluate new fuel standards to encourage the growth of biofuels. As these alternatives reduce our reliance on unstable and increasingly limited sources of fossil fuels, they will steer the U.S. toward more secure, reliable and independent sources of energy. For more background on alternative fuel sources, please see our June 2004 Newsletter Article "What Comes After Oil?"

Both the Pew Commission and the US Commission on the Oceans have documented the steep decline in ocean fisheries and the destruction of ocean habitat. The solution lies in three main strategies: (1) reform ocean governance and policies - including the elimination of destructive fishing practices such as bottom trawling, (2) separate the fisheries management decision of determining how many fish may be caught from the fishing permit allocation process, and (3) create a network of marine protected areas to give fish a place to spawn, grow and populate the oceans.

E2 has worked in New England and California to support local fishing policy and also to establish the Channel Island Marine Protected Area and the recently passed California Ocean Protection Act (COPA). Legislation has been introduced in Congress that would overhaul current ocean policy. We will work to support those legislative initiatives as well as to promote state initiatives in the coastal states.

While we are delighted with our early progress and the support from all our members, we are continually reminded of the huge challenges in front of us. To be successful we need to be increasingly focused and strategic. Our strength comes from the size and credentials of our membership and their willingness to take a public position and get involved. In addition, our members' support for the work of NRDC allows both organizations to continue to grow and effectively work toward environmental progress.

E2 works because we have invented techniques that make extremely efficient use of our members' time. We recognize that most of our members have only a few minutes a month to help out and our job is to make the most of those few minutes. With your continuing support and enthusiasm we seek to become even more effective as the "Business Voice for the Environment."