While climate change legislation continues to sit in Congress, metalcasters find themselves in a holding pattern. It’s a given that changes have to be made to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and shrink our carbon footprint, but unfortunately, often these changes aren’t made until they are dictated by the government. Deere & Co. is taking a more proactive approach. It announced Tuesday that it plans to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 25% per dollar of revenue from 2005-2014. Deere participates in the Environmental Protection Agency’s Climate Leaders program.

From the Quad City Times, which published a full story on Deere’s involvement:
 

While Deere is basing its reduction goal on a normalized number — per dollar of revenue — others are doing it by tons of production. “We provide equipment that can be weighed, but we also produce light components and services that can’t be weighed. We also wanted to include our fleet, office space and warehouses,” [said Laurie Zelnio, the company’s director of safety, environment and standards.]

Climate Leaders, which is an alliance of industry, government and environmental entities, is working to develop long-term climate change strategies. By participating, Zelnio said Deere and the partners create a credible record of their accomplishments, reduce their impact on the environment and identify themselves as corporate climate leaders.

“If we move to regulation in this country, we would like it to be a market-driven and economy-wide approach,” she said.
 

Deere’s initiative will include reducing emissions in its metalcasting, heat treating, painting and testing facilities.

By voluntarily working with the EPA to reduce its emissions, Deere is earning good faith status to have their economic position heard by the regulatory agency. Hopefully, through partnerships like this one, companies can work toward cleaning up the air without sacrificing profits.