INTERVIEW: NEW ENERGY ADVOCATE ANDREW WINSTON

Interview: ‘Green To Gold’ Author Winston
Kristyn Ecochard, May 15, 2007 (UPI)

WHO
Andrew Winston, co-author

WHAT
"Green to Gold: How Smart Companies Use Environmental Strategy to Innovate, Create Value and Build Competitive Advantage."
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WHEN
- “Small efforts, like changing light bulbs or retrofitting a facility, often have a quick payback. Other things, like retooling a product to avoid using a certain substance, can take years to achieve and years to pay back if it's even calculable.”
- “There is a shift happening and it's being accelerated by the business community… A value shift will come, not from consumers asking companies, but more from companies teaching their employees and teaching consumers…Surveys for years have shown consumers are wiling to buy green, but we've been waiting 37 years since the first Earth Day for people to spend more. I'm cautiously optimistic…”

WHERE
- “Almost every company has some sort of energy manager -- someone who's involved in acquiring energy for the facilities, but the question is do you need something at a higher level? In China and India they're starting to come to the table in part because they are suppliers and they're feeling pressure from companies here, and in part because they're seeing profound environmental degradation.”

WHY
- “Some changes don't require investment. A lot of green strategies are beneficial to a company, like cutting costs, and may require almost no investment or small investments. When you do something that reduces risk, it's a littler harder to measure.”
- “There's a famous story we tell as an example of requests for federal regulation about DuPont and CFCs during the time the Montreal Protocol was being created. DuPont fought it for a while but then they realized they could make a substitute and then they argued aggressively for the regulation because they could make a profit. That's a classic story of a company realizing they could use regulation to create a competitive advantage for themselves.”
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QUOTES
- “Government plays a critical role in setting the rules to create a level playing field for companies, but I'm a believer that companies are leading the way in this and they will lead the world to a cleaner, greener place. Incentives for renewable energy, moving away from subsidies for high carbon energy, are critically important because without them there's no way to set a price on carbon. We need those subsidies for newer technologies, to inspire more creativity and innovation -- and then the business community will find the most cost-effective solution within the right framework.”