Virginia, It Will Take All of Us
Members of the newly-formed Green Business Alliance
With 30% of Fortune 500 businesses committing to carbon emissions reduction targets, where does that leave small and medium size enterprises? And in Virginia small businesses make up the overwhelming majority of businesses. If the Commonwealth is to meet its carbon neutrality goal, this constituency has an important role to play. In this guest blog, Dr. Kelli Palmer, Vice-Chair for the Community Climate Collaborative and Head of Global Inclusion & Diversity and Corporate Citizenship at CFA Institute calls on this community to step up in a bigger, broader way.
On May 5th, Governor Northam joined sixteen Virginia nonprofit and for-profit businesses to announce the Green Business Alliance and its plan to reduce our climate emissions by 45% by 2025, a prime example of how the private sector in Virginia can take up the mantle of climate leadership.
But we need more businesses to think and work like this alliance, following the recent landmark piece of climate legislation committing the Commonwealth to reach carbon neutrality by 2045 passed by the General Assembly and Governor Northam. And if we are to truly do our part in this climate crisis as Virginians, businesses, nonprofits and communities across the Commonwealth must step up in a bigger, broader way.
For a moment let’s look at Virginia’s climate history. Historically, Black and Brown communities bear a disproportionate share of the impacts of climate change. These communities have borne the brunt of pollution, industrial expansion, and other negative energy and infrastructure externalities, paying the price for Virginia’s economic expansion. As temperatures and seas continue to rise the burden will only grow. From urban heat islands born from racist housing policy and rising energy burden, to coastal land doomed to be consumed by the sea, these Black and Brown communities face a challenging future if action is not taken. To deliver an environmentally just and equitable future, all Virginia communities and businesses must act on climate today.
Here in Virginia, businesses with fewer than 500 employees make up 99.5% of all businesses in the Commonwealth and have an outsized role in whether or not we reach our climate targets. The changes we need are comprehensive, aggressive, and urgent. To reach our goals, all businesses - not just the Fortune 500 - must step up and implement clean energy, energy efficiency, and clean transportation solutions to reduce their carbon emissions. Businesses must deploy solar and energy efficiency in every flavor at every scale, and partner with localities as they invest in transit and rail systems that truly work for our communities. We must do all of this while ensuring that the most vulnerable among us are not left bearing the worst impacts of a warming world.
If your organization has already been considering a climate action plan, know you’re not alone. If not, now is the time to start. The Charlottesville Area Green Business Alliance, powered by the Community Climate Collaborative (C3), is giving Virginia communities, nonprofits, and businesses a model to follow. Already, 16 leading Central Virginia businesses, from a hospital to a software services company, have stepped up and set a collective goal of a 45% reduction in climate emissions by 2025. That is five years faster than goals set by the City of Charlottesville and Albemarle County and well ahead of the Commonwealth’s goal to reach net zero emissions by 2045.
The changes being undertaken by these 16 climate leaders are real, attainable, and require investment. CFA Institute, for example, built a LEED-certified gold office in Charlottesville that includes a gray water system, solar panels, composting, recycling, and EV charging stations. Carter Myers Automotive’s Colonial Nissan facility became the first auto-dealership in Virginia to be fully powered by a garage-top solar canopy of 480 panels, an investment that offset nearly 100% of their energy costs. Hantzmon Wiebel, a CPA and advisory services firm which has served Central Virginia for over 90 years, implemented significant energy-conscious upgrades: removing outdated A/C units, switching to LEDs and motion sensor lighting, and installing 82 rooftop solar panels. All of these changes have saved these organizations money, and have the added benefit of being the right thing to do.
With 16 members, we are just getting started. If we are to truly succeed, to build a cleaner, more equitable Virginia, we are counting on you. Businesses, nonprofits, and communities across the state to step up and commit to measurable, quantifiable action. We can wait no longer; it is time to get serious about climate action.
—Dr. Kelli Palmer, Vice-Chair for the Community Climate Collaborative and Head of Global Inclusion & Diversity and Corporate Citizenship at CFA Institute and C3’s Vice-President.