I was recently speaking with a sustainability officer (he looks after the environmental foot print of the company - its buildings, travel requirements, product delivery, etc. with a goal of lessening the negative impacts by behavior change) for a large US drug company - with a European parent. We were discussing whether the recent required rollbacks of EPA guidelines and authority by President Trump were impacting progress on the US environmental efforts.
Now:
#1 - The US is already behind in progress made and prioritization of carbon reduction efforts in Europe and by European companies - his parent company is Swiss; China was way behind but is clearly outpacing the US now.
#2 - The Guidelines rollbacks make no sense except in some politicians dreams as to science, they are false claims proven over the years and part of companies' strategies.
#3 - Large US corporations are not even paying attention because their plans already acknowledge the science and environmental impacts and they have been executing on reductions in their business strategies - some for decades. This includes US automakers that are continuing to progress the fuel efficiency of vehicles and transitioning to Electric Vehicles in spite of MPG rollbacks by the administration.
#4 - Corporate sustainability guidelines and ratings now impact the financial valuations (stock prices) of these companies, so they cannot look either backwards or sideways.
The good news is that US companies continue to make efforts to reduce their carbon footprints and negative environmental impacts in spite of what our government is trying to pull off in favor of political contributions to their campaigns. American citizens individually just need to ignore the noise and make even small efforts on each of our parts to reduce our environmental negligence and improve the environment for our children and their children.
We all can do this!
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