May 10, 2007
Chief Energy Officers
How many businesses have a "chief energy officer"? And how many need one?
The question emerged from a new piece of research conducted by Hill and Knowlton, the PR company, among 420 senior business executives from the US, UK, China and Canada.
The survey found: a majority of senior technology leaders from around the globe (82 per cent) closely monitor the issue of global warming; most do not have a defined energy strategy to deal with it (65 per cent);
more than three quarters of business decision makers surveyed (77 per cent) believe there is a need to expand the C-Suite to include a Chief Energy Officer (CNO) to manage, implement and measure a company’s return on investment in environmental technology, the so-called Return on Environment (ROE).
I have never come across a company with a chief energy officer (or one that measures its "return on environment", come to that), and I wonder what type of companies might need one. For most companies, the most important energy issue is whether the lights stay on. In developed countries, that’s a given. Therefore designating someone at board level with such a title seems like overkill. But perhaps there are companies out there with "CNOs". Examples?
