Corporate Partners Rise to Governor’s Challenge

Businesses across Maine, including some of Clean Air-Cool Planet’s corporate partners, are signing up to be part of the exciting new Governor’s Carbon Challenge (GCC). With this voluntary program Maine, a signatory to the landmark regional Climate Change Action Plan of the New England Governors and Eastern Canadian Premiers Conference adopted in 2001, hopes to take a big step toward reducing its contribution to global warming by meeting its commitments for greenhouse gas emissions reductions.

Clean Air-Cool Planet has been working with the Maine’s Department of Environmental Protection and the Natural Resources Council of Maine, among others, to help engage potential participants for the program. “Corporations such as those we’re working with in Maine recognize the very real benefits of taking up this ‘challenge,’” says CA-CP Deputy Director Bob Sheppard.

The GCC invites businesses, as well as colleges and other organizations in the state, to enter into a voluntary self-designated emissions reductions commitment for the period between now and 2010. The first year of involvement is to be spent completing a greenhouse gas inventory, helping participants pinpoint where their biggest opportunities are to reduce their carbon pollution.

The reductions, measured from a 1990 baseline, can then be undertaken directly (through energy efficiency projects or “green” energy purchases) or indirectly (through offsets or “green tags”). Participating organizations will receive support, including informational and technical assistance, from the state’s Department of Environmental Protection.

“In these days of rising fuel bills corporations are being reminded that energy efficiency helps the bottom-line in terms of cost- as well as carbon-savings; additionally, acting now may put firms ahead of the learning curve in greenhouse gas reductions, while receiving support from the state and earning positive attention for their environmental leadership,” Sheppard notes.

The program is part of a larger effort to implement the first-in-the nation Climate Change law, LD 845, “An Act to Provide Leadership in Addressing the Threat of Climate Change,” adopted by Maine in 2003 and mandating that it develop a plan to meet its obligations under the regional NEG/ECP Climate Change Action Plan. Further initiatives, pinpointed through a stakeholder process inviting public input, are also in the process of being identified and rolled out as part of the Maine Climate Change law.

The overall goal of the regional climate change action plan and Maine’s state plan are to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by about 80% overall, with interim goals of getting back to 1990 levels by 2010 and 10% below 1990 levels by 2020.

—Jennifer Andrews