Gang Green

If

danger and opportunity drive business decisions, then companies and investors have more and more reason for concern about global warming. The snows of Kilimanjaro are shrinking, as are the polar ice caps, and governments from Canada to New Zealand are joining calls to restrict greenhouse-gas emissions. Consumers and shareholders are steering their money toward companies that demonstrate concern for the environment — or at least appear to do so. And technology is boosting the attractiveness of green products ranging from clean fuel-cell engines to pillows stuffed with a synthetic fiber derived not from oil but from corn. Even as the White House and Congress show little movement away from the U.S. policy of cheap and subsidized coal and petroleum, smart U.S. companies — especially those that operate globally — are investing in new green technologies and in ways of making their old operations cleaner and more energy efficient.

What do these trends mean for your business? For your investments? For the new products you'll be buying in just a few years? To address these questions, TIME's Eric Roston recently convened a Board of Technologists — five top experts in industry, the environment and investing (see box, right).

TIME: Are consumers willing to pay a premium for green products?

LANCASTER: Despite how much they say they prefer environmentally clean products, people just won't pay more. Fuel-cell vehicles, which my company, Ballard, is developing engines for, will sell — but when they do, it will be because they perform better than internal-combustion cars, not because they're cleaner.

TIME: How close at hand is that day?

LANCASTER: Maybe eight or 10 years. The major auto companies have prototypes, and today you can actually put down your credit card and buy a fuel-cell product. Coleman Powermate [a division of Sunbeam] just started selling a quiet, exhaust-free generator that uses our technology. It's for industry — it costs $5,995--but a consumer version is due in the next few months. General Electric is involved in fuel cells. They have an investment in one of our competitors [Plug Power].

When I started at Ballard 12 years ago, I would never have thought that I'd be talking excitedly about, say, the fuel-cell-powered floor scrubber. But companies are looking for a replacement for battery technology, something that can go through an entire shift and therefore cost less money.

BAVARIA: As an investor who promotes an environmental commitment, I often hear the comment "If there's no money in it, we can't do it." Companies have to make money. That is and should be their mandate. But there are times when the public interest can actually help the company.

LIFSET: I think it is unfair to ask companies to get out ahead of their customers. They have got to make money. They have a fiduciary responsibility, and the market would punish them if they didn't meet it. But companies should constantly be asking themselves, "How do we design processes and make products that are more environmentally benign? Are the things that everybody is talking about worthy of investment?"

TIME: Critics complain that leaders in many industries would rather tweak old technologies than seriously invest in new ones. Do you agree?

CORREA: Should somebody hold a gun to the auto industry's head and force higher fuel-efficiency standards? Actually, in the short run that is usually the right answer. But if you are thinking about a real shift, then probably not. Would you like to be the world's best sailmaker in 1880 and predicate your company on that? You'd probably win the next two years' worth of orders. You have to be the best at the game today, and you have to be clairvoyant enough to know the game in the future.

TIME: But in our quarter-to-quarter culture, the future isn't what it used to be.

LANCASTER: Yes, financial markets don't like long-term stories. They want current earnings per share. There is not a fuel-cell company that has that.

BAVARIA: We have owned hydrogen technologies wherever we can in our investment portfolios. In the short run, they don't look like very good investments. This is one of the barriers. Even big companies, which may want to do something, still face a five- or seven-year payoff. Up front, it is a huge capital outlay. They feel hamstrung because of the shareholders and Wall Street.

Most corporations will do whatever will pay them back in the intermediate term. Think of the "low-hanging fruit" issues — waste, energy use, pollution. There is a social mandate to fix those problems. But what in the world does a timber company, say, care about biodiversity? There has to be some other way to inject that interest to make a company use its resources to help solve that problem.

CORREA: But car companies are putting billions into a fuel-cell car before they get any money back. The Beijing Olympics in 2008 will have thousands of buses and trucks that will be running either with hybrid gasoline-and-electric engines or fuel cells. If you drive around Beijing today, you see billboards for the "Green Olympics."