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Make some green promoting green practices

By: dmc-admin//May 5, 2008//

Make some green promoting green practices

By: dmc-admin//May 5, 2008//

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ImageLawyers can make some green by advising clients on how to go green.

As the ties between conservation and economic interests become more apparent, businesses will find themselves incorporating environmental factors into their business plans. Lawyers will have to be able to help clients determine how best to integrate those factors.

The Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change has noted that climate change isn’t just about what will happen to the earth, but its inhabitants and more particularly, their economies.

David A. Crass, an environmental lawyer and managing partner of the Madison office of Michael Best & Friedrich LLP, says that the Stern Review sparked a new type of legal counseling for environmental lawyers.

Clean Environment = Good Business

The Stern Report, published in October 2006 and written by British economist Lord Nicolas Stern, caught the attention of business leaders across the globe because it focused not on the environmental impact of climate change, but on the economic impact.

The Stern Review was not the first scholarly work to examine global warming; it will not be the last. A robust debate continues to rage within the scientific community. But it cannot be denied that it struck a chord within the business community, says Crass.

“It was no doubt very frustrating for people who’ve been talking about global warming and climate change for the past 20 years. But I think we’re moving beyond scare tactics, to ‘Look this just makes good business sense.’ And, in my opinion, it’s also tied into the war in Iraq, and $116/barrel oil. It’s sort of this confluence of events that has made global warming relevant in the discussion.”

Arthur J. Harrington, a veteran environment lawyer and a partner with Godfrey & Kahn S.C., says he has seen just two major history-altering events during his 35 years in practice. The first was the passage of the federal Superfund Law in 1980, which in a nutshell says that landowners can be liable for the clean-up costs of environmental contamination, regardless of whether they caused that pollution or not. The second is global warming.

“Truthfully, I think concern over climate change is even bigger than Superfund, and it is creating substantial opportunities for lawyers,” Harrington says. “Because my firm belief is that, certainly at the federal level, we’re going to have regulation of the carbon-dioxide levels. In various states, that’s already happening.

“It’s an area of regulation that will impact many activities. The use of energy is something that affects just about all of our clients. I view this as a huge emerging area, and we’re trying to get out in front of the competition on this.”

Counseling Clients

Lest you think that this is an emerging practicing just for big-firm lawyers in Wisconsin’s two biggest cities, Jodi L. Arndt, of Liebmann, Conway, Olejniczak & Jerry S.C. in Green Bay says she has talked to a number of her environmental law clients about adopting sustainability initiatives. Arndt, who practices with a mid-sized firm, says her clients are likely influenced by the national media’s emphasis upon global warming. But even in Green Bay, the mayor has launched a “Sustainable Green Bay” program that is gaining momentum.

Skeptics remain within the business community, says Crass. If the Stern Review didn’t convince them, he points to polls showing that the hearts and minds of the American people have been won over.

“In the polls I’ve seen, the environment is always a ‘top five’ issue, along with health care, jobs and the economy and national security,” Crass says. “And, climate change is always the number one environmental issue, with something like 70 percent of the American people saying they want Congress to do something about it.

“When you’ve got that kind of public, outspoken identification of a problem, typically Congress reacts. So, what I’m counseling our clients is, regardless of what you think about the science, the fact of the matter is, Congress is going to react in some fashion to the public outcry on this issue. Just like any other stressor in business, the better prepared you are and ahead of the curve, the better off you’ll be.”

Politics, of course, influences one’s opinion. Democrats — the party generally presumed to be more environmentally friendly — were undoubtedly happy with the overwhelmingly positive response that Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth” received. As for Republicans — generally presumed to be the more pro-business party — on April 16, President Bush called for a halt in the growth of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by 2025 and urged other major polluting nations to develop national goals to address climate change.

Also of significance, say both Harrington and Crass, is that Wal-Mart, the world’s largest retailer and employer, and the biggest private user of electricity in the world, announced a wide-reaching sustainability program a few years ago.

The company set targets for itself, such as spending $500 million a year to increase fuel efficiency in Wal-Mart’s truck fleet by 25 percent over three years, to reduce greenhouse gases by 20 percent in seven years, and to reduce energy use at stores by 30 percent in three years.

More importantly, however, last fall, the company announced it will begin asking its suppliers, more than 60,000 across hundreds of industries, to measure their carbon footprint and find ways to reduce it. Further, Wal-Mart has begun keeping scorecards that rate vendors on their product packaging and encourages them to reduce waste.

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