Businesses Consider Global Warming a Serious Threat to Region but Are Adjusting, Bay Area...

Companies Are Actively Changing Their Policies and Many Are Finding New Market Opportunities

SAN FRANCISCO -- Seventy-seven percent of Bay Area CEOs think that global warming is a very or somewhat serious threat to the region's future economy and quality of life, according to results of

a Bay Area Council survey released today. Only six percent of the 510 CEOs and top executives in the nine Bay Area counties surveyed April 11-27, 2007 say the threat is "not at all serious." Also, by a strong margin, Bay Area businesses support the California Global Warming Solutions Act (AB32), requiring California to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 25 percent by the year 2020. A super majority of 84 percent of top business executives support the Act, and 56 percent say they "strongly" support it.

Market forces and California's famous spirit of innovation appear to be catching up with the media attention on climate change. An astounding one third of Bay Area companies (32 percent) report they have discovered market opportunities for their business related to global warming or greenhouse gas reduction. Fifty-two percent of respondents say that they have made changes in their operations or policies in the past two years regarding global warming.

"Our clients now want buildings that are environmentally responsible, profitable and healthy places to live and work," said Andy Ball, the President and CEO of Webcor Builders. "Whether it's recycling materials, reducing waste, lowering energy consumption or improving operating efficiencies, construction is just one Bay Area industry innovating to reduce the carbon imprint of our products."

"With one third of our companies actively finding ways to profit from reducing greenhouse gases, the Bay Area is undeniably now the center of the clean and green business market," said Jim Wunderman, President and CEO of the Bay Area Council.

Larger companies seem to have more quickly adjusted to the changing environmental landscape. For example, 60 percent of companies with more than 10,000 Bay Area employees have found ways to profit from greenhouse gas reduction, but only 29 percent of those with 49 or less employees have found market opportunities for themselves. More than 70 percent of very large employers with more than 1,000 local employees have changed internal policies in the past two years to respond to global warming, whereas only about half of companies with 99 or less employees have changed policies.