Background

The US Business Council for Sustainable Development (US BCSD), with support from Entergy Corporation, launched the Gulf Coast Carbon Collaborative in December 2019 to create a cross-sector platform aimed at reducing the region’s carbon emissions and impact while preserving and enhancing its economic vitality. Businesses in the Gulf Coast region are increasingly motivated to reduce carbon emissions because the area is both positioned for economic growth and uniquely vulnerable to the physical and regulatory risks posed by climate change and the control of greenhouse gas emissions. Stakeholders also are increasingly interested in how business and industry will respond to these challenges. Challenges to the reduction of carbon emissions include access to technology, information and capital to fund change. An ongoing cross-sector collaboration structure specific to the region is needed to address these challenges and empower managers and decision-makers to create strategies through shared experiences that will help protect regional assets and economic opportunity.

From the US BCSD

The US BCSD is an action-oriented and member-led nonprofit business association, founded in 1992, to give leading US businesses a shared space to design, implement and scale sustainability solutions. US BCSD collaboration platforms provide ongoing venues for stakeholders to act together on issues of common concern. Working from a US BCSD platform, businesses come together to define critical needs for business action in sustainability, and then develop and implement collaborative projects with the help of US BCSD facilitators.

The US BCSD sees a major opportunity in the Gulf Coast region to harness the collective energy and motivation of businesses in the area to create measurable, long-term impact in reducing carbon emissions in the region, and build a replicable model for business action in other regions.

From Entergy

Establishing and supporting this collaborative is part of Entergy's long-term commitment to the sustainability of its communities and operations. Entergy leaders understand that the company’s growth potential depends on the health and sustainability of the four-state area it serves. This region offers a rare combination of resources: a business-friendly, central U.S. location with direct access to raw materials and markets; an expansive infrastructure; and a skilled, affordable workforce.

Entergy intends to reduce the overall carbon emissions from and impacts to its region and help businesses thrive in a responsible, sustainable way. Entergy played a leading role in helping organize the launch of the Collaborative, but going forward will participate as an equal member of the group. Entergy also helping to invite other energy utilities and solution providers in the region to participate.

Objectives

The Gulf Coast Carbon Collaborative will function as an ongoing working group - driven by business - that is focused on developing and implementing initiatives that reduce carbon emissions across the economy while minimizing business impacts in the Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas region. The range of sectors and solutions to be discussed is open.

Successful strategies to be developed might include equipment modernization; technology and operating improvements; electrification; shifts to renewable energy sources; nature-based sequestration; and carbon capture, utilization, and storage. Collaborations could include those between customers and suppliers, peers, businesses, and energy providers.

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