Energy Efficiency, Commercial, Industrial, Sourcing Renewables  -  October 6, 2018

Weekend reads: Republicans love RE; Is sustainability fading?

It's the weekend! Kick back and relax with these must-read energy articles from around the web:

Why Republican Leaders Love Renewable Energy (Forbes)  Or at least they should? A common misconception in today’s hyper-polarized world is that people more aligned with the political left are more in favor of renewable energy than those that politically lean to the right, who presumably want more fossil fuels. While this might feel like the case given the current state of our national caricature, the local story can be more nuanced. Republicans from Texas to Iowa regularly extoll the virtues of renewables like wind and solar power, and for good reason.  

Is Sustainability Fading from Board Agendas? (CFO)  In 2016, BDO asked corporate directors whether they believed that disclosures regarding sustainability matters — like corporate social responsibility and the impact of climate change — were important to understanding a company’s business and provided meaningful information to investors. Three-quarters of the respondents (76%) said “no.” When the auditing and consulting firm asked the same question last year, more than half (54%) of directors said “yes.” This year, among the 140 directors who participated in BDO’s annual survey, responses to the question flopped back to the 2016 level, with 74% saying “no.” What the heck is going on?

Metro-North First US Railroad Certified For Energy Efficiency (Patch)  The MTA today announced that Metro-North has become the first railroad in North America to achieve ISO-50001 Certification, an internationally recognized framework that guides and supports organizations to manage energy more efficiently. As an ISO certified railroad, Metro-North is not only doing its part to preserve the environment for future generations, the railroad is reducing its operating expenses. The certification puts Metro-North on a path to save $2 million annually by 2020 and further reduce its carbon footprint. 

Citizens put renewable energy on this year’s ballots (Colorado Independent)  The fossil fuel-friendly Trump administration has been busy rolling back environmental regulations and opening millions of acres of public land to oil and gas drilling. Just last week, the Interior Department announced plans to gut an Obama-era methane pollution rule, giving natural gas producers more leeway to emit the powerful greenhouse gas. With the GOP controlling the executive branch and Congress, that means state-level ballot initiatives are one of the few tools progressives have left to advance their own energy agendas.  

Farmers encouraged to apply for energy-efficiency program (Herald-Mail Media)  The Washington County Department of Business Development invites local farms and agriculture businesses to apply for the 2019 Kathleen A.P. Mathias Agriculture Energy Efficiency Program, which was recently launched by the Maryland Energy Administration (MEA). The program was established by Mathias in 2012 and is leading into its seventh year with $175,000 in available funding. MEA will provide grants covering up to 50 percent of the cost of eligible energy-efficiency upgrades for farms and businesses in the agriculture sector. 

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