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Politics : The Exxon Free Environmental Thread -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Land Shark who wrote (10)	3/16/2007 4:03:19 PM
From: Wharf Rat	Respond to of 49171

Carbon footprint of products to be displayed on label package By Ian Herbert Published: 16 March 2007 The Carbon Trust is launching a green equivalent to the Fairtrade label - a consumer label which details the carbon footprint of a product and a commitment by its producer to reduce it. Several major brand products, including Walkers crisps (carbon footprint: 75g), Boots Organics shampoo (148g) and Innocent smoothies (294g), will test the use of the logo - a white arrow wrapped in a black letter C. Over time it is expected that many more will join, raising the prospect that products might be marketed on the basis that they have the lowest carbon footprint in their marketplace. The first product to be stamped with the logo will be Walkers cheese and onion crisps - the company's best-selling flavour. The Carbon Trust has enabled the company to identify the footprint of the three competing products in its range - crisps, Quavers and Doritos - by tracing its production cycle from the potato and corn producers at the start to recycling consultants at the end. As a result, Walkers has reduced the carbon footprint of the product by a third. The trust established that farmers were hydrating potatoes to make them weigh more, because they were being paid a price per ton. Potatoes were stored in artificially humidified sheds to increase their water content. Humidifiers use large amounts of energy and generate significant emissions. Walkers was then frying the sliced potatoes to remove the moisture. This increased overall frying time and fryer emissions by up to 10 per cent. By changing the way potatoes are traded, the trust found that the Walkers supply chain could save up to 9,200 tons of carbon dioxide emissions and £1.2m a year. It recommended farmers be rewarded for producing potatoes with low water content. Research undertaken by the trust shows that 66 per cent of consumers say they want to know the carbon footprint of the products they buy. For products to carry the label, companies will need to have completed a rigorous analysis of their product supply chains, and commit to reducing the carbon level of their product over the next two years. news.independent.co.uk

To: Land Shark who wrote (10)	3/16/2007 4:08:29 PM
From: Wharf Rat	Respond to of 49171

Exxon has actually changed their public stance. Still a lot of their money out there, tho. Exxon Mobil has no more doubts on warming By KRISTEN HAYS Copyright 2007 Houston Chronicle Exxon Mobil has no more doubts on warming Pond of oil in ground has anger bubbling Big Oil behemoth Exxon Mobil Corp. has dropped any pretense of questioning whether global warming is real. Now the company is seeking to position itself as an active player in efforts to lower greenhouse gases. "The appropriate debate isn't on whether climate is changing, but rather should be on what we should be doing about it," Kenneth Cohen, Exxon's vice president of public affairs, told reporters on a conference call Thursday. The call came less than a week after an international panel of hundreds of scientists said new research showed global warming was "unequivocal" and that human activity was primarily responsible for the most significant factor in temperature change — greenhouse gases. "Climate is changing. It's a serious issue. The evidence is there," Cohen said on the call, which was arranged in part to allow Exxon to state its position on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's report. When pressed, Cohen said "there is no question that human activity is the source of carbon dioxide emissions," and emphasized that Exxon is working with various policy groups and universities to find ways to produce energy while lowering greenhouse gases. Cohen's statements appeared to be the most definitive yet in the company's effort to show Exxon cares about climate change and wants to do something about it. It's a far cry from former CEO Lee Raymond's rigid stance on the issue in the late 1990s, when he questioned science that linked fossil fuels to global warming. Raymond acknowledged in a 2000 speech that climate change caused by carbon dioxide emissions was a "legitimate concern." 'Certainly have mellowed' Upon succeeding Raymond as CEO last year, Rex Tillerson labeled climate change a serious issue. He later said the company needed to soften its public image and better explain its stance on global warming. "They certainly have mellowed somewhat," said Art Smith, chairman and CEO of John S. Herold, an energy research and consulting firm. "They took a pretty hard stance that everyone else was wrong about this." Chris Miller, a global warming campaigner for Greenpeace, said Exxon had little choice but to embrace climate change as genuine because too much scientific data exists for the company to credibly say otherwise. "It just became too difficult for them to say that with a straight face given everything we know," Miller said. "They are finessing this position, and they have done so since Tillerson took over." Cohen, who oversees Exxon's charitable giving, also addressed Exxon's funding for think tanks. The company came under fire when environmental groups said that one think tank that received Exxon funding, the American Enterprise Institute, had offered scientists $10,000 to critique the IPCC study. AEI said it was focused on global warming policy, not science. But Cohen said Thursday that Exxon has stopped funding a "small handful" of think tanks involved in climate change policy discussions because the ensuing criticism was a distraction. "We did that because we felt some of the attention being devoted to the issue was diverting attention from what we wanted to be focusing on," which Cohen said was a need for global action to reduce emissions. Not focusing on renewables In a speech last year, Tillerson promoted reducing emissions through coal-fired plants that spit fewer gases into the air and more fuel-efficient vehicles. The company also is studying the viability of carbon storage and dedicating scientists to find technologies to cut emissions. Cohen said that's Exxon's focus because 80 percent of the world's energy comes from oil, natural gas and coal, a situation that isn't expected to change in the next 20 years despite the growth of renewables backed by government subsidies. Sherri Stuewer, Exxon's global vice president of health, safety and environment, who joined Cohen on the call, said Exxon isn't seeking to pour money into renewables despite such efforts by its peers because they aren't currently viable without subsidies. Stuewer said Exxon has had solar and nuclear initiatives in the past that proved unprofitable. "Our interest is in being in energy options that are successful," she said. chron.com