Apple, Wal-Mart stick with climate pledges

Bloomberg

Many of America’s biggest corporations including Apple Inc. and Wal-Mart Stores Inc. are sticking by their pledges to fight climate change even as President Donald Trump guts his predecessor’s environmental policies. Companies say their pledges, coordinated by the Obama administration, reflect their push to cut energy costs, head off activist pressure and address a risk to their bottom line in the decades to come.
“This work is embedded in our business,” Wal-Mart spokesman Kevin Gardner said by email. It’s “good for the business, our shareholders and customers; if ultimately we are able to positively impact the environment in the process, that’s a win too.” Wal-Mart was one of 81 companies that promised to reduce emissions in the run up to the 2015 Paris global climate negotiations. The company upped its targets last November, saying it would get half its power from renewable sources by 2025. Trump signed an order Tuesday that tells the Environmental Protection Agency to reconsider former President Barack Obama’s climate rules, and rescinds a series of orders Obama issued to embed consideration of climate change in government actions from where to lease buildings to whether to allow oil pipelines to be built.
“Most big companies in the US recognize that climate change is real,” Geoffrey M. Heal, a professor at Columbia Business School, said. “They need to move ahead on the climate change front no matter what Trump’s government does.” Business’s biggest lobbying force supports Trump on this issue. The US Chamber of Commerce welcomed Trump’s order calling that shift “vital to stimulating economic growth.” The group argues that Obama’s regulations held back economic growth, preventing business owners from constructing needed pipelines, roads and other infrastructure. It also warned that the climate push would lead to a jump in energy prices. But many of the group’s members and other corporate titans supported Obama’s Clean Power Plan, or have set their own goals. Anheuser-Busch InBev, the world’s largest beer-maker, also announced Tuesday that it would get 100 percent of its electricity from renewable sources by 2025. Nearly 90 companies have made similar pledges, according to Sierra Club.
One of them is Mars Inc., the maker of M&M’s. The company committed to eliminating its emissions entirely by 2040. Andy Pharoah, vice president of corporate affairs, said that Mars would keep that commitment, and it’s “disappointed the administration has decided to roll back climate regulations.” Technology companies including Apple, Amazon.com Inc, Alphabet Inc.’s Google and Microsoft Corp. also expressed their support for Obama’s policies.
“We believe that strong clean energy and climate policies, like the Clean Power Plan, can make renewable energy supplies more robust and address the serious threat of climate change while also supporting American competitiveness, innovation, and job growth,” the companies said in a joint statement after Trump’s order was signed.