|
MeadWestvaco is a lot greener than you think |
|
|
|
Wednesday, 18 April 2007 |
|
Page 2 of 3
Indirect emissions, created by the generation of power at and for these facilities, are not included in the company’s tabulations, although getting a handle on power is a big part of the green equation.
“One of the big things you can do to improve your environmental footprint is tightening up on heat loss,” Fledderman said. “We generate a lot of power and a lot of our facilities were built 40 years ago, when power was cheap. It just makes business sense to plug the holes, so to speak, and rather than lose the heat to the environment, put it back to work powering your plant, reducing the fuel you burn.
“The other big thing you can do, and one of the things we’re specifically doing at the North Charleston facility, is switching from coal as a power source to biomass,” he said. He added that while that may sound easy, “the in-feed into the system just wasn’t made for that, so we’ve had some growing pains.”
Although some might suggest that switching to natural gas might be an easier option to implement, Fledderman said there just isn’t enough natural gas to meet the potential industrial demand nationally.
“As a result, we’d all be looking at much higher electric bills,” he said. “In the alternative, we foresee a time when the technology to deliver and use alternative fuels catches up with the need and we’ll all be more reliant on a combination of biomass, natural gas and perhaps even some nuclear to serve our energy needs.
“Of course, I don’t think we can rush to get to that point without hurting the economy.”
Aside from focusing on better energy sources and better ways to use them effectively, MeadWestvaco has also created a dedicated capital fund to pay for greenhouse gas abatement.
“Each year the company allocates a certain amount of money to the fund—in the millions of dollars, although I don’t have the exact figure—and our facilities put forth greenhouse gas abatement projects and projects to improve energy efficiency for which they’d like some of that funding.
“It’s kind of a competition between facilities, and it gets people excited about what they can do to address climate change.”
This fund, and the company’s involvement with the climate exchange, helps to keep the issue of climate change in front of MeadWestvaco’s managers.
“You know, people assume companies know how much carbon dioxide they’re emitting, but many of us don’t, or didn’t,” Fledderman said. “That’s one of the first things you have to do: Get a handle on what your emissions are.
“The other thing people and corporate managers have to understand is that we’re still in that period where you learn by doing, but you’ve got to be doing. You know, as I said earlier, many of our customers ask us about the ‘green’ aspects of our business. Others don’t, but that’s changing and it just makes sense to anticipate the change.”
|
