01/29/2007

Are Some Blue chips Becoming Green chips?

Hello:

Could it be that Blue chip Companies (companies with a nationally recognized name and a long history of profitability) are seeing that more greenbacks could be had by going environmentally green?

In last week's e-Update, we mentioned the Energy Security Leadership Counsel (ESLC) whose members include (in addition to many high ranking retired members of the Armed Services) top ranking executives from UPS, Inc., Royal Caribbean International, C.V. Starr & Co., Goldman Sachs (International), Southwest Airlines, Dow Chemical Co., FedEx Corp., and Waste Management, Inc. As mentioned last week, members of this counsel met with President Bush prior to the State of the Union Address in hopes of encouraging more stringent standards for conservation.

This week, the U.S. Climate Action Partnership (US-CAP) was brought to our attention. US-CAP corporate members include Alcoa, BP America, Caterpillar Inc., Duke Energy, Dupont, FPL Group, General Electric, Lehman Brothers, PG&E Corporation, and others. Their mission is to call upon the Federal Government to quickly enact strong national legislation to require significant reductions of greenhouse gas emissions.

We applaud these companies for their altruistic, and perhaps very much needed, goals of going green and helping improve the global environment, however, we cannot help but ask ourselves if perhaps these blue chips could be under the impression that going green could benefit the company by making their stocks more attractive to institutional and to individual investors? Perhaps they are not wrong about that?

Speaking of being environmentally green, consider letting your donors know the policies your organization follows in order to reduce it's carbon footprint. Conservation could be an important part of their philanthropic philosophy.

Terri G. Millson, CIMA, CIMC President

Ray Dicius, CSA, GEPC LPL Branch Manager