When Treasury & Risk Management decided to tackle the topic of global warming in last June's issue, it was an acknowledgement that the universe of risks that companies are being forced to consider is growing exponentially–and in ways not contemplated before.
Maybe some of these are threats that will not explode on corporate balance sheets in the next year or even the next five, but as in the case of global warming, they are challenges that cannot be hedged or easily set right if allowed to proceed unchecked. They will require planning and a vision that considers more than just the immediate future.
T&RM's coverage in this issue of alternative energy options has been undertaken in the same spirit. Again, it is unlikely that most of your companies will rush out and take an option on landfill gases or build a wind turbine to power a factory, but hopefully the questions raised in T&RM's article will get you and other executives thinking about the various company choices and when, or if, your employer should begin actively exploring them.
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In this current millenium, risk management so far has all too often become a consideration of the unthinkable. In contrast, the investigation into alternative energy is a trek into solutions rather than problems and opens up a new world of possibilities–a cleaner environment, stable and more predictable costs of energy and a means of cutting off the revenue pipeline that at least in part has financed some of those unthinkable risks.
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