Tina Vujovich is the Vice President, Marketing & Environmental Policy at Cummins Inc.

Getting large organizations working toward a common initiative is not an easy task.  The habit to keep doing what we have always been doing is much easier than figuring out how to do things in a different way.  However, there is great power in alignment.  In fact, I am certain that at large companies it is the only way to make major changes, and moving to a more energy efficient operation is one of those big initiatives  which requires alignment.

Alignment starts at the top.  As much as we would like to think that grass roots, bottom up efforts at a new initiative are successful, there is nothing like having the top of the organization on board.  But "on board" does not mean a tacit approval of the initiative.  It means a very active, visible and supportive behavior.  At Cummins, this happens only after a strong business case for the initiative is established.

Cummins jumped with both feet into the environmental energy efficiency initiative about two years ago.  We decided that the debates on Climate Change and greenhouse gases were over, and if nothing were done with the consumption of fossil fuels and the production of GHG the world as we know it will change markedly, and thus sustainability of Companies such as our own would diminish.  So, we made the leap and made a commitment to the USEPA Climate Leaders Program.  We committed to reduce greenhouses gas intensity by 25% from 2005 to 2010.

The business case for Cummins was an obvious one.  For our facilities -- over 250 of them worldwide -- our efforts to get them more energy efficient would result in lower utility costs!  For our products -- the majority of which are involved in producing power -- our efforts to improve energy efficiency translates to lower operating costs for our customers!  Once we had our top management convinced of the business case, their energy went quickly from challenging the initiative to putting their unwavering support behind it.

Aligning the organization was the next step.  Cummins has long held that our ability to design, develop and manufacture products for an environmentally regulated market is a capability with a worldwide competitive advantage.  All of our employees know well our mission statement which says that we "demand that everything we do leads to a cleaner, healthier and safer environment."  Moving the organization to the next environmental frontier of greenhouse gas control and energy efficiency was easy -- particularly when it comes with a payback to our bottom line and to our customers.  Important to note is that not all projects in this initiative gets implemented.  Every project must pass our financial hurdles.  In other words, if the payback is not reasonable, the project is not done.  But the interest in succeeding in this initiative has caused us to get very creative and industrious in the projects so that they do produce a satisfactory payback.

Now, about one and a half years into our six year commitment we are well over half way to our Climate Leaders goal.

With regard to our products, we are just as aggressive about energy efficiency.  Even before definitive legislation is structured, we are already developing plans for significant fuel efficiency gains from our products.

At Cummins, we have found that the secret to a successful environmental energy efficiency initiative was all about having the right mission, articulating a clear business case, and getting the alignment of the organization behind the initiative.  It has worked well for us, and we expect to continue this effort long after our Climate Leader's goal is met.

Only in that way can we expect to sustain ourselves in this very competitive and energy consuming environment.