Strong duo on green front

Philadelphia Inquirer

PHILADELPHIA — President Obama is not expected to be there. Nor is the head of Wal-Mart, Mike Duke.

But when Valley Forge, Pa., building-products manufacturer CertainTeed Corp. unveils its “very, very first baby step” into the world of photovoltaic roofing this week at the International Builders Show in Las Vegas, Obama and Duke presumably will be pleased.

In the fall, each took action to inspire greater commitment to protecting natural resources and working less wastefully, known in the green vernacular as sustainability.

Obama signed an executive order requiring federal agencies to practice what the administration is urging all Americans to do to aid the environment and help build a thriving clean-energy economy: Use less energy, recycle more, and build and buy in a way that doesn’t waste resources and tax the planet.

Duke, Wal-Mart’s president and chief executive, announced a sustainability-index initiative to influence suppliers to produce and deliver their products more efficiently and with environmental sensitivity.

Though Obama and Duke acted independently, what they did has the collective potential to significantly advance what has been a slowly evolving movement — one that draws skepticism from those who wonder whether the payoff is worth the expense.

“What you have is the 500-pound gorillas in the private sector and the public sector making these [sustainability] decisions ... and they’re going to drive the rest of the market,” said Joshua M. Kaplowitz, an environmental and commercial lawyer at Drinker, Biddle & Reath L.L.P.

The U.S. government is the nation’s single largest user of energy. It owns nearly half-a-million buildings and more than 600,000 fleet vehicles, and it buys more than half a trillion dollars’ worth of goods and services each year.

Wal-Mart offers equally colossal credentials: It reported $401 billion in sales and 2.1 million employees worldwide last year.

With the federal government and one of the world’s largest retailers putting their substantial heft behind the cause, the results could be a real game changer, said Shari Shapiro, an environmental law associate at Obermayer, Rebmann, Maxwell & Hippel L.L.P. in Philadelphia.

Shapiro couched her comment by saying that other steps — such as passage of a climate-change bill — are important to achieving a national embrace of sustainability. But she acknowledged that “there are no two bigger forces in our society.”

The order Obama signed Oct. 5 requires federal agencies to, among other things, increase energy efficiency; measure, report and reduce their greenhouse-gas emissions; conserve and protect water resources; and leverage acquisitions to foster markets for sustainable technologies and environmentally preferable materials.

It also calls for federal buildings to be green and for 95 percent of federal purchases to meet sustainability requirements. That it does not require 100 percent compliance is an acknowledgment that sustainability provisions might not be applicable for such purchases as military weapons systems, said Michelle Moore, Obama’s federal environmental executive.

Under the order, each federal agency must appoint a sustainability officer. Every six months, the Office of Management and Budget will issue a public scorecard grading each agency on its sustainability performance.

In April, recommendations are due on which sustainability criteria to require of federal contractors, Moore said.

Wal-Mart’s sustainability index also is a work in progress, expected to be rolled out in three phases.

Critics note that Wal-Mart — because of its size and influence — is known for driving down wages and putting out of business smaller competitors that can’t keep pace on pricing. Those same people are hoping its power and scope can make Wal-Mart a sustainability inspiration.

“We have already seen the type of change Wal-Mart can have on our economy,” said Shapiro, who also writes the blog www.greenbuildinglaw.com. “So if it has the same impact on sustainability, it will be major.”

That assessment was echoed by Aman Desouza, director of innovation and sustainability at CertainTeed.

In recent years, the company has worked to develop more environmentally sensitive, higher-performing products to meet consumers’ green demands. That effort yielded the new EnerGen solar system that CertainTeed will debut this week in Las Vegas.