PA Environment Digest

The Pennsylvania Chamber of Business and Industry this week announced the launch of a new initiative aimed at reinforcing the business community’s commitment to “going green” and incorporating sustainability efforts into their every day business practices, while encouraging “green” business growth and job creation, and alternative/renewable energy, within the framework of the free enterprise system.

PA Chamber President Floyd Warner said the PA Chamber Green Initiative will engage businesses in exploring what is needed from a policy perspective to encourage growth in the green industry sector in a manner that allows consumer choice and innovation to drive that economic activity, and that creates a landscape conducive to emerging green and traditional industries.

“A healthy private sector – not more taxes, mandates and spending – is the answer for long-term economic growth and job creation, regardless of the industry in question,” Warner said. “Pennsylvania must focus on developing viable green products and services and renewable energy without straining the pocketbooks of taxpayers. It needs a legislative framework that allows innovation and consumer choice to flourish; a framework that encourages entrepreneurs to develop new products and technologies based on market demands.”

Warner said another focus of the new initiative is to more formally bring together businesses in an effort to encourage the sharing of best practices and ideas with the goal of assisting all Pennsylvania employers looking to incorporate sustainability practices into their business model.

The Chamber’s various educational conferences and publications have frequently featured its members’ commitment to the environment.

“This initiative is a natural extension of this information sharing as more and more businesses take steps to ‘go green,’” Warner said.

Warner said the business community’s advocacy mission, which promotes the need to balance commonsense environmental protection with economic growth and job creation, has led some to paint an inaccurate picture of job creators’ concerns about quality-of-life issues such as clean water, air and land.

“There are dramatic differences of opinion about environmental policy relative to economic development and regulation,” he stressed. “But that should not diminish the fact that the Pennsylvania Chamber and its member companies are good corporate citizens that are doing their part to protect the environment.”

Warner said the PA Chamber Green Initiative will help inform the public that job creators want all Pennsylvanians to enjoy the long-term economic benefits that can be realized by a free market approach to green products and services.

Share this: