rolf nordstrom

GPI President and CEO Rolf Nordstrom wrote “How Companies Can Help Create a Net-Zero Carbon Economy” for the Forbes Business Council website where it was originally published.

Eliminating carbon dioxide emissions from our economy has taken on an air of inevitability. Now it’s just about how fast, who benefits, who pays and what a net-zero carbon economy will be like in practice.

The market momentum behind decarbonizing the economy seems to grow with every passing week. So, if a low-carbon economy is where we’re headed, what might it be like when we get there? Let’s take a look at some future possibilities and what companies can do to help the economy achieve them.

Carbon As A Valuable Resource, Not A Waste Product

Because of its heat-trapping characteristics, carbon dioxide (CO2) is considered a form of pollution and waste. But I believe that carbon emissions are also an economic resource to create value and jobs as part of a circular, zero-emissions economy.

Power plants and industrial facilities across our economy can capture their carbon emissions and either store them permanently underground or put them to productive use in various products (since pretty much everything is carbon-based). For example, direct air capture technologies remove carbon we have already released by capturing CO2 from ambient air.

Over time, a growing proportion of captured carbon emissions will become a building block to make things of value, such as fuels, chemicals, construction products and advanced materials. And more innovative technologies and business models will emerge to recycle waste emissions for environmentally beneficial economic use.

By mid-century, the U.S. will have developed a national carbon management infrastructure capable of transporting CO2 from industrial facilities and power plants where it is captured to those locations where it can be stored or put to beneficial use.

Smarter And More Electrified Buildings

Utilities and other companies can increasingly make electricity using a combination of renewable resources such as wind and solar, some form of energy storage, plus emerging technologies like enhanced geothermal.

As electricity production becomes cleaner, we can electrify more of our economy, including space and water heating in buildings. For example, in places that don’t get really cold in the winter, heat pumps will become ubiquitous (they’re already a commercial technology). The average household will use less natural gas and home heating oil in favor of clean electricity and other zero-carbon fuels, such as hydrogen and renewable natural gas.

People could pay for electricity the way we pay for most things today. Instead of paying a flat rate all the time, the price will vary depending on when it’s cheapest and most expensive for the utility to produce it, with safeguards in place to avoid price gouging. Smart meters, appliances and utility programs will increasingly enable consumers to take advantage of timing their electricity consumption to when it’s cheapest.

Powering Vehicles With Electricity And Other Clean Fuels

As evidenced most recently by GM’s announcement that it will sell only electric vehicles starting in 2035, most passenger vehicles will be powered by electricity, making them fast, quiet, cheap to own and fun to drive. In the future, automakers plan to offer many electric vehicle types, including trucks and SUVs. People will plug in their electric vehicle the same way they plug in their cell phone to charge overnight, except that a smart vehicle charger will manage when your vehicle charges to secure the cheapest electricity rates.

Other zero-carbon energy carriers like advanced biofuels, hydrogen, ammonia and/or synthetic fuels made with renewable electricity and waste sources of carbon monoxide and CO2 can power some vehicles that don’t lend themselves to electricity (for example, rail, planes, farm equipment). This can help create a healthier, quieter place to live, particularly in cities, with better water quality.

Soil And Water Improvements Through Farming Processes

Many practices like cover crops, reduced tillage, reduced fertilizer use and precision agriculture are in use today, and I believe they will simply become the norm. Cargill, for example, has committed to advancing such regenerative agriculture practices in its supply chain. And farmers will be paid, in part, based on how much carbon they help store for society.

While growing corn and soybeans is still important, farmers and agricultural companies can also grow perennial plants, which require fewer expensive inputs and are naturally adapted to conserve water and store carbon in the soil (for example, new perennial wheat).

Keeping green roots in the ground more of the year helps increase the land’s water holding capacity and resilience with heavy rainfall. Such practices also tend to reduce the runoff of nutrients and soil into surface water. The agricultural industry can use wind, water and nitrogen from the air to make green ammonia as a fuel, fertilizer and chemical form of energy storage for wind.

Why This Should Matter To Businesses

The above is, of course, only a partial sketch of our future­­. But perhaps it’s enough to be able to imagine it, which, as all entrepreneurs know, is the first step to innovation.

The time will come — and I predict sooner than you might think — when eliminating carbon emissions as a company will become the expected norm. In other words, your social license to operate as a business and your ability to attract and retain the most talented workers will hinge, in part, on your emissions performance.

For companies that embrace t­­­his transformation now, there’s a massive opportunity for leadership, innovation and competitive advantage. A net-zero carbon future can deliver broad benefits across the economy, but only if companies increase the speed and scale of their efforts today.

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