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  Every Company Is An Energy Company

    

  Mar. 16  2011 - 6:07 pm |   426 views  | 1 recommendation  | 1 comment 

     

  By CHRISTOPHER HELMAN

   

   

   

  

  Image by AFP via @daylife

   

   

  With oil prices rising again and the nuclear energy industry taking it on the chin from the disaster in Japan, it’s more important than ever that executives internalize the idea that every company is an energy company. Those that attend to the long-term energy needs of their companies will gain an edge over those that don’t.

   

  The following essay was written for Forbes by Nick Main and Joseph Stanislaw. Main is Deloitte’s Global Managing Director for Sustainability & Climate Change Services. Stanislaw is an Independent Senior Advisor to Deloitte’s Energy & Sustainability practice and is also the founder of the advisory firm JAStanislaw Group, LLC.

   

  Every company is an energy company. And if it isn’t, it will be soon. A decade from now, a company without an energy and sustainability department could be as unusual as one without a human resources department.  Or, it might be out of business.

   

  Energy consumes a significant portion of an enterprise’s spending, accounting for 5-20
• The sooner companies begin to understand and actively manage their energy use and energy sources, including possible ways to produce their own energy, the faster they’ll see the potential for a number of advantages including significant savings, a better bottom line, greater customer loyalty, a cost-edge over competitors, lower business risk and a company-wide awareness of sustainability that can rein in resource waste across the board
• Every company has a business strategy, a risk strategy, a strategy for growing markets, for managing human resources and so forth. But many companies do not yet have an energy strategy, let alone broader sustainability strategies to manage the use of water, land, and other resources.
• Developing an energy strategy should be cast as a positive initiative that can improve the bottom line of a company and the broader community—not as a bare-minimum attempt at conservation. This is not about green-washing. Energy and sustainability strategies are about hard-core business decisions and going back to the basics of managing resources and resource use. Falling short may mean limiting profitability and could jeopardize the long-term health of the business.

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