Under the proposed cap-and-trade plan, manufacturers would have to pay for their greenhouse gas emissions, including carbon dioxide. For many companies, including auto makers, this is a money issue as much as (or maybe more than) an environmental one.
NSF International and Trucost Plc analyzed the greenhouse gas emissions of 230 businesses in a variety of sectors, including six in the automotive business: Ford, GM, Harley-Davidson, Goodyear, Johnson Controls, and Genuine Parts. Genuine Parts, an umbrella company that includes NAPA, had the lowest carbon emissions per million dollars of revenue. The other five companies all scored in the same neighborhood, as far as CO2 per million dollars goes.
The report puts CO2 emissions into financial perspective for the industry: if you don’t clean up your act sooner rather than later, it is going to cost you money. Not only that, but the report points out that a “dirty” company competing against a “clean” one will lose the public relations battle, too. Another hit to the ol’ pocketbook for spewing greenhouse gases into the air.
Overall, the average auto or parts manufacturer emits 1.3 million metric tons of green house gases each year. Over 90% of those emissions come from the supply chain, not from the manufacture of the product itself. Large companies are going to need to put the pressure on their suppliers to clean up, too. Otherwise, the company that builds the car is going to get dinged for the carbon score of the parts that go into it.
It’s all very complicated, and the report includes a lot of charts. But it boils down to one message for corporations: clean up your act, or you’ll end up paying six ways to Sunday.