October 11, 2002—In a September ceremony in Chicago, US Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Christie Whitman celebrated the sixth-month anniversary of EPA’s Climate Leaders program by recognizing the progress made by the 30 Partners currently participating.
Climate Leaders, a voluntary government/industry partnership launched last spring, is a key component of the Bush administration’s climate change policy. The partnership challenges businesses to develop a comprehensive greenhouse gas emissions inventory for their activities and then to set aggressive, long-term emissions reduction goals.
Whitman applauded five Climate Leaders Partners for their new reduction goals:
- Bethlehem Steel Corp. (Bethlehem, Pa.) pledged to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 12 percent per ton of steel from 2000 to 2010.
- Holcim (US), Inc. (Dundee, Mich.) pledged to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 12 percent per ton of cement from 2000 to 2008.
- IBM (Armonk, N.Y.) pledged to achieve average annual carbon dioxide emissions reductions equivalent to four percent of electricity and fuel use from 2000 to 2005. IBM also pledged to reduce its perfluorocarbons emissions by 10 percent from 2000 to 2005.
- The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (Golden, Colo.) pledged to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 10 percent per square foot from 2000 to 2005.
- S.C. Johnson & Son Inc. (Racine, Wis.) pledged to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 23 percent per pound of product from 2000 to 2005.
Climate Leaders Partners work with EPA to develop corporate-wide greenhouse gas emissions inventories and set aggressive, long-term emissions reduction goals. After Partners complete their greenhouse gas inventory, EPA works closely with them to develop a customized emissions reduction target. These targets must be aggressive long-term targets that exceed business-as-usual performance for the Partner’s sector.
More information on EPA’s Climate Leaders program is available on the EPA Web site.
