Reviews

Maybe it can grow on trees

Climate Capitalism: Capitalism in the

Age of Climate Change. By L. Hunter Lovins and Boyd Cohen (Hill and Wang, 2011, 390 pp. $27.95 U.S. $32.50 Cdn.)

money, whether you are a business leader or head of a household.” The authors strive to be non-partisan, insisting that “this is not a liberal agenda, or a red or a blue wedge issue.” They clearly Funny thing, global warming. With all the attention and environmental action it has try to boost both environmentalism and business at the same time. By their reckoning, the generated — and a recession smart money is already rushto boot — it keeps getting ing into clean energy. This worse. You’d think the eco- movement is propelled by a nomic slowdown, at least, would heady mix of green faith and have made a dent in carbon-spit- entrepreneurial vision, not to ting. Apparently not. According to mention the expectation of the International Energy Agency, more government intervention. increasing greenhouse gas emissions “From the local to the global level, hit a record last year. businesses have essentially no choice:

Whatever are we to do? Well, do more climate regulation is here and more is combusiness, say the authors of this new book. They ing,” they note. “Despite the persistent claims by see “climate capitalism” as “the best route to profit- climate change deniers that climate regulation will ability and competitive advantage.” destroy prosperity, most companies recognize that a

The authors have plenty of green cred. L. Hunter rules-based system is needed to establish a predictable Lovins is president and founder of Natural Capitalism and level playing field.” Solutions; Boyd Cohen is CEO of CO2IMPACT. Together Lovins and Cohen see lucrative business opportunities they race through the world of corporate green in energy (including solar, wind and wave power), and offer a breathless promotion of how smart transportation and biofuel technology that can businessfolk can save the planet and make money produce motive fuel out of straw, chocolate, cofat the same time. Wherever there is a global fee, even cooking grease (“turkey crude”). Many warming problem, they say, you can find “climate of these have applications in developing councapitalists” looking for profitable solutions. tries, such as new insurance products for drought

The stakes are high, and go beyond simply and extreme weather, as well as delivery of saving the environment. In their view, the world economy depends on it. “Commitments by global leaders to unGuess what. You can save the planet potable water. Solar-powered water filters, for instance, enable users to not cut trees for fuel to boil dirty water, thus mitigating leashing the green economy could turn the and make money at carbon. world around,” they declare. “Conversely, the same time. The book has plenty of examples of how delay in implementing sustainable measures aggressive environmental initiatives can could deepen the current depression, now recognized as profitably solve the problem. They cite DuPont, whose the worst since the 1930s.” Quite simply, solving the cli- stock price reportedly rose 340 percent while it cut global mate crisis “IS THE WAY OUT(their caps) of the economic emissions by 67 percent. “When the likes of Goldman crisis. Sachs and Deloitte report that companies leading in envi-

The good news (and there seems to be plenty of it in ronmental, social, and good governance policies have 25 this book) is that the business community, not always seen percent higher stock values, change is clearly underway.” as a friend of green, can be part of the solution by using Moreover, “it is clear that behaving in more sustainable intelligent market mechanisms. “The best and fastest way ways has moved from a chic niche position to a business to protect the climate is to reduce the unnecessary use imperative.” of fossil energy,” they say. “It is also the fastest way to They analyze both adaptive responses (how to get used an immediate return on investment. Cutting waste saves to living on less carbon) and mitigation responses (reduc-

ing present dependence on befouling practices). Take, for example, the energy used in homes, offices and industrial facilities, which they call the “most powerful driver” of global warming. “The energy used in the building sector is almost half (48 percent) of all energy consumption.” Saving energy with better insulation techniques “is simply the best investment you can make. If you have money and you are not investing in increasing the efficiency of your home, your office, or the buildings in your community, you are throwing money down the drain.”

Their bent is to solve the

“Behaving in more sustainable ways has moved from a chic niche position to a business imperative.”

problem, not merely live with it. “A rapid switch to focus on adaptation solutions would divert resources from our paramount need to shift to a low-carbon economy,” they write.

“Success,” say Lovins and Cohen, “will go to the nimble,” and being nimble implies seeing that protecting the climate is not a cost but an investment. “Those who embrace Climate Capitalism are on the most dependable route to prosperity, now and in the coming decades.”

In fact, they see themselves as saviors of capitalism. They quote a former oil industry executive as saying, “Socialism collapsed because it did not allow the market to tell the economic truth. Capitalism may collapse because it does not allow the market to tell the ecological truth.”

Thus they expend themselves telling their version of both economic and ecological truth.

“Let’s unleash this new-energy economy,” they write. “We can entrepreneur our way out of the crisis and create a far higher quality of life.”

— Wally Kroeker