Environmental Valuation & Cost-Benefit News

Link: http://www.fsu.com/pages/2008/09/24/climate_change_report.html>

A just-released Florida State University report finds that climate change will cause significant impacts on Florida's coastlines and economy due to increased sea level rise.

"The impacts of climate change on Florida's coasts and on our economy will be substantial, persistent and long-term, even under our conservative estimates," said Julie Harrington, director of the Center for Economic Forecasting and Analysis at FSU. "Should, as many models predict, sea level rise, and hurricane strength and other factors become more extreme, much greater economic impacts will occur along many parts of Florida's coast in this century."

This study uses current estimates of sea level rise from Florida State University's Beaches and Shores Resource Center and 2001 estimates from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to evaluate the effect of sea level rise on the six coastal counties. The results show projected trends in storm-surge flood return periods associated with hurricanes, damage costs associated with flooding from major storm events, and the value and area of land at risk.

Under the FSU study's estimates for sea level in Dade County, the value of land at risk totals $6.7 billion in 2080 (in 2005 dollars). (By comparison, using International Panel on Climate Change sea level estimates, the value of land at risk in Dade County ranges from $1 billion to $12.3 billion in 2080). The study also calculated the effect of storm surge and sea level rise on future damage costs, finding that if a storm like Hurricane Wilma from 2005 occurred in 2080, the cost to Dade alone would be from 12 percent to 31 percent higher (in 2005 constant dollars). While these findings do not account for adaptive strategies or potential future increases in property values, they still provide valuable information about potential impacts and resources that are put at risk from sea level rise.

The report can be downloaded at http://www.cefa.fsu.edu/uploaded%20current%20projects/FSU%208%2014%202008%20final.pdf

Florida State University (FSU) Center for Economic Forecasting and Analysis www.cefa.fsu.edu

Link: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/08/business/08build.html

In new Wal-Mart stores, the baseboards and moldings are made of plastic left over from diaper manufacturing. Chipotle, the burrito chain, has installed an energy-producing wind turbine outside a new store in the Chicago suburbs. And a Florida chain called Pizza Fusion reuses the draft from its ovens to heat water.

Across the country, a race is under way among stores and fast-food restaurants to build environmentally friendly outlets, as a way to curry favor with consumers and to lower operating costs....

One of the latest participants is McDonald’s, which recently opened a revamped restaurant in a gritty industrial area on the South Side of Chicago....

The newly rebuilt restaurant is crammed with energy- and water-saving gadgets as varied as high-efficiency appliances, pavement that filters rainwater, and tables and chairs made out of recycled material. It even has a garden on the roof.
...
Recently, Kohl’s opened 45 stores that were built using recycled materials, water-saving plumbing fixtures and on-site recycling. Wal-Mart ... [is experimenting] with “high-efficiency” stores that save 20 to 45 percent in energy costs.
...
At Wal-Mart ... all new stores have highly efficient lights, skylights and improved heating, cooling and refrigeration systems. The floors of the stores are not covered but instead are exposed concrete slabs made with recycled steel and fly ash, a waste product. ...A store in Las Vegas ... is expected to save 45 percent in energy costs....
Energy is the company’s second-biggest operating expense, after personnel. [But], the company found that large wind turbines did not make sense at its stores.

Peter DiPasqua, a Subway franchisee with 89 stores in central Florida, said he originally thought his green store in Kissimmee was largely a “feel-good thing.” But he said as construction progressed, he became more impressed with the benefits of LEED-certified construction.

[A Subway in Kisseme Florida] cost about 20 percent more to build ... but ... was saving 20 percent a month on electricity even though [it] is selling 43 percent more than a store down the street.
...
McDonald’s had chosen Chicago for the green restaurant because the city had a program that expedited the permitting process for LEED-certified buildings. The building cost more than a typical restaurant.
...
By Andrew Martin
The New York Times www.NYTimes.com
November 8, 2008

Link: http://www.eoearth.org/article/Environmental_protection,_the_economy,_and_jobs

Table of Contents

* 1 Introduction: The Issue
* 2 What Constitutes an Environmental Job?
o 2.1 Ambiguities and Questions
o 2.2 Definitions and Concepts Used Here
o 2.3 Jobs Distribution in Typical Environmental Companies
* 3 Findings at the National Level
* 4 Findings at the State Level
o 4.1 Aggregate and Sectoral Findings
o 4.2 Environmental Jobs by Occupation

The relationship between environmental protection, the economy, and jobs has been an issue of harsh contention for decades. Analysts and policymakers of all points of view seem to agree that a strong relationship exists between environmental protection and jobs; the debate is over the sign of the correlation coefficient. Does environmental protection tend to harm the economy and destroy jobs or to facilitate economic growth and create jobs? If the latter is the case, can the positive affects be quantified and estimated at a meaningful level of detail?

Here Roger Bezdek and associates address this issue by summarizing the initial results of the Jobs and the Environment Initiative, a research effort funded by nonprofit foundations designed to quantify the relationship between environmental protection, the economy, and jobs. They estimates the size of the U.S. environmental industry in 2003 and the numbers of environment-related jobs created at the national level and in the states of Florida, Michigan, Minnesota, North Carolina, Ohio, and Wisconsin.
...
Findings at the National Level

They found that, contrary to general public perception and public policy understanding, since the late 1960s, protection of the environment has grown rapidly to become a major sales generating, profit making, job creating industry. Expenditures in the U.S. for environmental protection (EP) have grown (in constant 2003 dollars) from $39 billion per year in 1970 to $301 billion per year by 2003 increasing more rapidly than GDP over the same period – see Table 3. If "EP" were a corporation, it would rank higher than the top of the Fortune 500, for our estimate of 2003 EP expenditures ($301 billion) ranks it higher than the sales of $259 billion for Wal-Mart, the largest corporation in the U.S. In 2003, environmental protection generated five million jobs distributed widely throughout the nation.

Many companies, whether they realize it or not, owe their profits and in some cases their existence to EP expenditures. Many workers, whether they realize it or not, would be unemployed were it not for these expenditures: In 2003 environmental protection created nearly five million jobs distributed widely throughout the nation. To put this into perspective, the size of environment-related employment is over ten times larger than employment in the U.S. pharmaceuticals industry, nearly six times larger than the apparel industry, almost three times larger than the chemical industry, nearly half the employment in hospitals, and almost one-third the size of the entire construction industry.

Bezdek, et. al. estimate that in 2003 protecting the environment generated $301 billion in total industry sales, $20 billion in corporate profits, 4.97 million jobs, and $45 billion in Federal, state, and local government tax revenues. Clearly, providing the goods and services required for environmental protection has become a major U.S. industry with significant effects on the national economy and labor market and on those of individual states.
...
Findings at the State Level
...
The shares of each state of the total U.S. environmental industry and environment-related jobs also differ substantially, depending largely on the size of state GDP and labor force. Nevertheless, there are some important differences among the states. For example, while the number of environment-related jobs is about the same in both Michigan and Florida and each state has about 4.4 percent of the national total, the population of Florida is nearly twice that of Michigan – Florida represents about six percent of the U.S. population while Michigan comprises 3.4 percent. That is, per capita, the size of the environmental industry in Michigan is nearly twice that of the industry in Florida.
...
Significant portions of the environmental jobs in each state are in the public administration sector which, given the public nature of environmental protection, is to be expected. However, most of the environmental jobs in the states are in the private sector, and focusing on these reveals that they are heavily concentrated in several sectors.

Of particular note is that the private sector environmental industry is more manufacturing intensive than other average private sector activity in the states. ... In Florida, 7.4 percent of private sector jobs in the environmental industry is in manufacturing, compared to 6.2 percent in manufacturing among all private sector jobs in the state; in Michigan, 29 percent of private sector jobs in the environmental industry is in manufacturing, compared to 17 percent in manufacturing among all private sector jobs; in Minnesota, the comparable shares are 21 percent and 15 percent; in North Carolina, the comparable shares are 24 percent and 19 percent; in Ohio, the comparable shares are 29 percent and 18 percent; in Wisconsin, the comparable shares are 31 percent and 21 percent.

Lead Author: Roger Bezdek
This article has been reviewed and approved by the following Topic Editor: Tom Tietenberg
Encyclopedia of Earth www.eoearth.org
Editors. Cutler J. Cleveland (Washington, D.C.: Environmental Information Coalition, National Council for Science and the Environment)
Last Updated: September 14, 2008

Link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhydene.2008.05.113

Abstract: This article proposes a hydrogen car rental strategy for transitioning from fleets to consumers in Orlando, Florida. Orlando is the No. 1 tourist destination in the United States, but most car renters visit only a few destinations. A hydrogen rental car fleet serving this cluster of destinations could provide visitors with a positive first exposure to hydrogen vehicles with minimal commitment, creating hydrogen advocates and potential early adopters in their home regions. The rental car business combines the logistical advantages of a fleet operation with outreach to many consumers. A hydrogen-powered rental car fleet at the Orlando International Airport could provide guaranteed demand, supporting an initial rollout of refueling stations. Lee Lines, Michael Kuby, Ronald Schultz, James Clancy and Zhixiao Xie surveyed 435 rental car customers in Orlando to understand the idea from the consumer point of view. The authors analyzed the bundles of destinations visited by the respondents and found that only three stations—an existing station at the Orlando International Airport plus new stations near the theme parks and in downtown Orlando—could serve 64% of renters. Half of all respondents indicated a willingness to pay more to rent a hydrogen car, and this subset of customers ranked the ability to use a pollution-free car as the most important factor in their decision. They then identify the major barriers to a hydrogen rental car business model from the corporate point of view and propose a number of potential solutions. The most significant barrier appears to be the fleet purchase costs, which we think can be offset by the benefits of free media coverage and contained by beginning with converted internal-combustion vehicles and converting eventually to fuel-cell vehicles. The authors also outline possible synergies with NASA, Disney, refueling stations, manufacturers and state government.

Keyword: Hydrogen; Rental car; Commercialization; Consumer; Survey; Barrier; Transition

by Lee Lines 1, Michael Kuby 2, Ronald Schultz 3, James Clancy 2 and Zhixiao Xie 3
1. Department of Environmental Studies, Rollins College, 1000 Holt Avenue, Box 2753, Winter Park, FL 32789-4499, USA
2. School of Geographical Sciences, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ 85287-5302, USA
3. Department of Geosciences, Florida Atlantic University, 777 Glades Road, Boca Raton, FL 33431, USA

International Journal of Hydrogen Energy; via Elsevier Science Direct www.ScienceDirect.com
Volume 33, Issue 20; October 2008; Pages 5312-5325
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhydene.2008.05.113