How will enviromental legislature affect the bottom line of our company?

Government intervention

Depending on the industry you work in, enviromental protection service fees, fines, recycling costs, etc may be eating away at your net profits. With governments paying more attention to enviromental protection, the private sector was quick to follow with a multi billion dollar industry to profit from these initiatives. The provincial governments in Canada,for example, supported by its federal counterpart, have imposed countless laws on firms wishing to exploit the countries' untapped oil resources. In the province of Alberta, a regulatory body called the Energy and Utilities Board, needs to approve any companie's proposal for exploration or testing of a potential oil site. The company which wishes to do so must first complete a thourough enviromental risk assesment, which includes specific emmisions measurements and affects on the environment that the company's activity will contribute. Further to the risk assesment, each approved project needs to be decomissioned and returned to its original state after extraction of natural gas/oil has been completed. The EUB requires the that an independent enviromental services company needs to be hired to clean up the site at an expense of the exploration company.

The above example pertains to the oil and gas industry in Canada, which ofcourse would be an enormous risk to the environment if it was not in some form regulated by the government. The government control, however, is not as infuential in other oil rich countries. Take for example Nigeria. In 2000, a study of the environemtnal affects of exploration, extraction and refining of the deposists showed some devestating conclusions:

• Destabilization of the natural state of the soil through oil exploration.

• Pollution of surface and ground water due to the application of chemical fertilizers and indiscriminate dumping of municipal waste.

• Destruction of primary forests, known habitats of several fauna and flora, which form nature's primary food chain. The multiple pollution on the waterways and vegetations is a concrete set back which leads to various short, medium and long-term effects. etc (source: http://www.waado.org/Environment/PetrolPolution/OilSpills/OilSpills_Introduction.html)
  
  

The above are examples of effective and ineffective government control on the environemtn. It is our belief that governemnt is the only viable regulatory body which can enforce enviromental issues. The only way the government can enforce it is in a form of a tax or fines for corporations which do not adhere to the laws. This task cannot be left to the coorporation themselves. The main driving factor for all coorporation is profit. By directly reducing the company's bottom line, the government is the only body which can influence organizations to act responsily towards the environment.

Eco friendly office

There are several ways in which the companies bottom line can be affected in an office environment. Becasue energy and resource use directly affects a company's income statement, cost reduction and environmentally friendly initiatives go hand in hand in an office environment. Here are some examples:

• Reducing paper use
• Saving energy by shuting off idle electronics
• Screen Savers
• Efficient use of photocopiers
• Electronic Files
• Reuse Paper
• Virtual Meetings
• Energy star monitors
• Use laptops instead of desktops