Archive for March, 2008
March 13, 2008 5:32PM
By Liz Claman
Lee Scott talks the talk AND walks the walk. I talked to him today, live in Santa Barbara at the Wall Street Journal’s first-ever ECOnomics conference. He’s a low-key guy who doesn’t make bold, dramatic statements. He tells it like it is — and when it comes to going green, he’s calmly, but firmly, telling anyone who asks that, “We’re doing it. If it’s good for our customers, we’ll do it.” So he’s finding ways to turn the world’s largest retailer into a better corporate citizen when it comes to the environment.
Among Wal-Mart’s commitments:
–get customers to recycle their plastic bags
–get customers to buy Wal-Mart’s 99 cent reusable grocery bags
–putting compact fluorescent bulbs in all store lighting displays
–improving battery efficiency in warehouse forklifts
–aiming for zero-waste
Now, I asked him to be honest on one particular point: Was he always on board with becoming more environmentally friendly? Or did he have to come around to it? He said it was a process but now he’s come around and he feels history will judge Wal-Mart by how it helps cut down on waste and emissions. I held up one of the energy-efficient compact fluorescent bulbs we had bought at a Wal-Mart on our way to the conference and asked, “Do you have these in YOUR house?” No hesitation. “I do. It was one of my personal sustainability resolutions and now I’ve got them in my home.”
When a company like Wal-Mart takes the lead, others follow, or get lost in the shuffle.
So folks, today we finished out our first day at the ECOconference. Tomorrow, lots more live from Bacara, one of the most beautiful resorts in the nation. It’s been a busy, crazy day for our fabulous Fox Business crew who worked all night to set up our operations. Lance and Pete, my photographers, ran all over the place with me so we could bring unique shots to you, our viewers. Hope you like it, we’ll be back at it again tomorrow.
–Liz
March 13, 2008 10:48AM
By Liz Claman
Good morning from Santa Barbara where the sun is rising over blue skies and a cobalt Pacific ocean. We’re going to be live all day from the Wall Street Journal’s first-ever ECOnomics conference which brings together CEO’s, entrepreneurs and venture capitalists to discuss how to make money by going ‘green’: reducing carbon emissions, recycling and figuring out ways to create sustainable energy.
General Electric’s CEO Jeff Immelt was last night’s keynote speaker. He made some bold and dramatic statements to the group of 300. Among them:
“I’m not an environmentalist. I’m a capitalist and a businessman but I believe i can drive earnings and make money by working to create clean energy, water and environmental solutions….”
“We decided on our own to see if we could follow the Kyoto Protocol (emission reduction efforts)…I *thought* we’d lose money doing it, but we *made* money.”
“Don’t put your heads in the sand and be stupid about this. You better start (becoming more green) today.”
“Our lighting business is our worst business. The only thing that makes it interesting today is new energy standards.”
The crowd interrupted several times with big applause. He was a hit.
So gang, this morning at 11am ET, 8am Pacific, my first guest will be a guy you’d *think* wouldn’t want to be at a conference like this one. Red Cavaney, CEO of the American Petroleum Institute will be FIRST on FOX Business. With oil at 110$ a barrel, he knows he has some ’splainin’ to do but he’s a good sport and we’re so happy he’ll join us.
Also today, Lee Scott, CEO of WalMart, Andrew Liveris of Dow Chemical, James Rogers of Duke Energy, and the Green Poster Child, actor Ed Begley Jr. All will be with me live on FOX Business.
So keep us on all day to hear some pretty fascinating talk about the future of our world and how businesses want to fit it.
–See ya at the beach!
Liz
March 12, 2008 5:26PM
By Liz Claman
Hey gang,
JetBlue (JBLU) has gotten us to the West Coast safe and sound — and we’re already at Bacara, the spectacular, oceanside resort in Santa Barbara that will be the site of the Wall Street Journal’s very first ECO-nomics Conference. The conference will bring together company leaders ranging from Dow Chemical to Wal-Mart to G.E. to Cypress Semiconductor and beyond to talk about green initiatives, innovation and profit — all of it stemming from alternative energy and environmentally-friendly ideas. (By the way, the plane was full of New Yorkers riveted to their JetBlue mini-television screens, with just about everyone watching the build-up to NY Gov. Eliot Spitzer’s resignation. We were somewhere above Colorado when, literally just as Spitzer was about to say, “…and so I will resign…,” the pilot interrupted everyone’s audio to tell us our flight elevation and current temperature. Half the plane started moaning, “Hey! We wanna HEAR this!” Typical New Yorkers, right?)
Well, now we’re turning our attention to what is expected to be one of the most important and interesting CEO conferences we’ve covered in a long time. Fox Business jumped at the chance to come cover this because there truly seems to be a historic sea-change when it comes to how massive, publicly-traded companies view the environment and their role in creating products that help— or at least don’t hurt– the planet.
Starting tomorrow, I’ll be live from the beach, talking to CEOs and leaders in the field of “Green.” We’ll be talking to actor Ed Begley Jr. who woke up one day in 1970 and decided that he was going to change the way he lived… and change the impact his living would have on the environment. As recently as 5 years ago, perhaps some of the same CEOs attending this conference might have called him a kook. Now? They all want to get his ideas. Whether you think global warming is real or simply hype, you should know that many CEOs whose companies you might own in your own portfolio are now believers and ready to jump on the bandwagon.
We’ll find out why starting tomorrow so keep Fox Business on.
–Liz
March 11, 2008 9:36PM
By Liz Claman
Listen, I’m from California. I was the kid putting the brick in the toilet tank at age 7 with my dad who used to tell us, “Don’t take fresh water for granted. Don’t take electricity flowing from the flip of a switch for granted.” So for me, conserving and protecting the environment has always been ingrained. However, for Wall Street, being environmentally sound has, in the past, often been met with everything from skepticism to outright scorn. But now??? The green concept for many companies has become a steam train that’s laid down its tracks and is ready to roll… without the black smoke coming out of its stack.
It’s 9:20pm ET Tuesday night and I’ve just finished packing to head with the FOX Business crew to Southern California. We’ve got the Wall Street Journal to thank for the location of what is expected to be a most memorable assignment: The ECO:nomics Executive Conference at Bacara Resort in picturesque Santa Barbara. The Journal has organized this gathering of C-Suite (that’s Wall Street talk for top executives…i.e., CEO’s, CIO’s, CFO’s etc.) leaders who are working hard to change the way their companies operate when it comes to ‘green’ efforts: curbing global-warming emissions, creating more environmentally sound products and making a new, more focused effort to become more energy-efficient.
What makes this new and different is that the companies participating are not necessarily the ones you’d think of first for sporting the big green “G”: Dow Chemical (DOW), WalMart (WMT), Cypress Semiconductor (CY), General Motors (GM). But inside their offices, plants and assembly lines they’re now the ones pushing to be at the forefront of creating environmental capital. They’ve all found ways of making a huge ‘green’ effort pay off for their bottom lines.
So gang, I’ll be live starting Thursday through Friday on both my show with David Asman (2-5pm ET) and throughout the day on other FOX Business shows, giving you all the angles of how these companies are now deciding that being ‘green’ can bring in the green. You’ll hear from the CEO’s themselves, along with the people at the forefront of the green effort.
I’ll send some of that California sunshine your way as soon as I get there. Stay tuned, I’ll be blogging from Bacara resort the whole time. See ya on the other end!
P.S. And WAIT til you see our live location. My producer Michele Nunes had our FOX Business L.A. bureau guys scope out the location and let’s just put it this way: we’re talking serious California Dreamin’. Don’t miss it!
