About Futurepast
- Proactively managing greenhouse gas assets and liabilities
- Meeting environmental regulatory requirements
- Providing customers and stakeholders with accurate and relevant environmental information
- Enhancing organizational effectiveness.
Futurepast believes that consultants should not only “talk the talk” but also “walk the talk.” Our own climate change strategy is informed by the following actions:
- Reporting Futurepast’s own organizational GHG emissions to The Climate Registry
- Engaging climate change policy through participation in the Emissions Marketing Association and the American Bar Association section on Environment, Energy and Natural Resources
- Providing expertise to standards development in ISO Technical Committee 207 Subcommittee 7 on greenhouse gas management and in ASTM’s E 50 Committee
- Qualifying as a California Climate Action Registry–recognized Technical Services Provider.
Futurepast is headquartered in Arlington, Virginia. We serve customers in the United States and around the world.
Why Count Carbon? Risks, Opportunities & Benefits
The Risks
Corporate leaders in increasing numbers have turned their attention to the risks and opportunities associated with greenhouse gas emissions. With nearly complete scientific consensus that rising greenhouse gas concentrations are responsible for global warming, top leaders are recognizing their strategic and fiduciary responsibility to assess the impacts of climate change on their organizations.
There are three main categories of risk. The first is financial losses from damages and remediation due to climate change. These are direct costs that companies would have to pay if their facilities or other assets were damaged or dislocated by climate-related impacts (such as intensified weather patterns) or rising ocean levels.
Changing legal requirements at the international, national and state levels and rising pressure from risk managers, investors and consumers to constrain carbon emissions present a second kind of risk. To comply with new regulations issued by the US Environmental Protection Agency, approximately 10,000 facilities in the United States must quantify their emissions from January 1, 2010, and report them to EPA by March 31, 2011.
A third risk is legal action from investors or other parties who attempt to hold officers and directors accountable for management decisions related to “off balance sheet” environmental risks and liabilities.
The Opportunities
Companies can both manage risk and position themselves for changing market conditions by understanding the carbon intensity of their activities and products and developing appropriate policies and management strategies.
One management response is to consider preventive and adaptive measures that will protect against direct risks from climate change. A second approach is the development of less carbon-intensive processes and products that improve economic efficiency and/or tap new markets. A third option is to bank or trade emission reduction credits in anticipation of future carbon constrained regulatory environments.
An evaluation of the company’s current emissions baseline is essential for valuing greenhouse gas management investments and determining their return.
The Investment
A small investment in developing a greenhouse gas inventory and implementing corporate strategic responses can provide long-term dividends from effective early action.
Futurepast supports proactive management and early action by providing the following services:
- Greenhouse gas consulting
- Accounting services to count carbon dioxide (and other greenhouse gases)
- Verification of greenhouse gas assertions
- Integrating greenhouse gas management activities into business management systems.
The Benefits
Managing greenhouse gas emissions can improve operational efficiency, reduce energy consumption, and increase market share. It can reduce risks, meet regulatory compliance obligations, increase shareholder value, and augment a corporation’s reputation.
The Next Steps
Futurepast can assist you with full service consulting and verification or help you train an interdisciplinary team within your organization to meet your GHG objectives. We invite you to visit the other pages in this website to learn more about how we can assist you in counting your carbon.
Futurepast Leadership
John Shideler’s expertise includes carbon strategies for organizations, the design of greenhouse gas inventories, carbon footprinting of products, and verification of greenhouse gas assertions.
Dr. Shideler is a US expert to ISO Technical Committee 207 (Environmental Management Systems) where he helped write international standards on greenhouse gas management (ISO 14064, ISO 14065, and ISO 14066). He co-chairs the US Technical Advisory Group’s SubTAG 7 on Greenhouse Gas Management and is a member of ASTM International’s Environmental Committee E50.
CSA America awarded its first Certified Greenhouse Gas Verifier certificate to John Shideler in February 2009. Dr. Shideler also is certified by the California Air Resources Board as a Greenhouse Gas Lead Verifier with a specialty in electricity transactions and by RABQSA as an Environmental and Responsible Care Management Systems Lead Auditor. He is a member of the Emissions Marketing Association and an associate member of the American Bar Association .
Dr. Shideler is the Greenhouse Gas Program Manager for NSF-ISR, an Ann Arbor, Michigan-based greenhouse gas validation and verification body, and serves as a member of the Greenhouse Gas Validation/Verification Advisory Committee to the American National Standards Institute (ANSI).
Dr. Shideler is twice the recipient of an “Outstanding Achievement in Standards Development Award” for his work developing ISO 14064:2006 and ISO 14065:2007. An associate member of the American Bar Association, he earned his PhD degree at the University of California, Berkeley. He is the author or co-author of five books and numerous articles for journals and reviews.
Robert S. “Steve” Corker, Vice President
During a more than forty-year long career, Steve Corker managed award-winning public relations and marketing efforts for businesses and nonprofits. In the 1990s his management consulting background helped Futurepast deliver professional training to Russian and Ukrainian government leaders and managers in programs sponsored by the US Agency for International Development.
Steve Corker’s awards and honors include:
- 1983 recipient of the prestigious “Clio” Award, honoring advertising excellence worldwide
- 1990 recipient of the George Washington Medal for Excellence in Public Communications from the Freedoms Foundation at Valley Forge for his article on the Soviet Union entitled “A Caravan of Peace.”
- 1991 recipient of the Lenin Humanitarian Award for contributions to youth programs in both the US and former Soviet Union
Mr. Corker remains active as an adjunct professor of marketing and public relations at Gonzaga University in Spokane, WA, and as an elected member of the Spokane, Washington, City Council.
Mr. Corker graduated from Stanford University with a BA in political science. At Stanford he was a Soviet Union/Russian Studies Scholar, studying under Alexander Kerensky, who briefly headed the Russian Government in 1917.
California Climate Action Registry has approved Futurepast as a technical service provider.
Futurepast is a proud member of The Climate Registry. We report our emissions to The Climate Registry annually.
Visit the American Chemistry Council’s responsible care RCMS/RC14001 website.
Futurepast Publications
To order any of the titles listed on this page direct from Futurepast, please call toll-free (USA and Canada) 888-358-9047, or outside the USA and Canada, 1-703-358-9127.
A classic has returned to print with Futurepast’s Second Edition of Coal Towns in the Cascades, A History of Roslyn and Cle Elum, Washington, by John C. Shideler, published January 2006.
- Coal Towns in the Cascades: A Centennial History of Roslyn and Cle Elum, Washington, Second Edition, ISBN 0-9710464-4-1, 158 pp., with notes and index. $49.95.
From 2002 through 2005, Futurepast published four volumes in the “ISTC Science and Technology Series” for the International Science and Technology Center (ISTC) in Moscow. To learn more about the ISTC, please visit the ISTC homepage.
ISTC Science and Technology Series
Volume 4
- Read peer reviews of Radiation Safety Assurance: Decommissioning of Nuclear Reactors at Civil and Military Installations.
- Radiation Safety Assurance: Decommissioning of Nuclear Reactors at Civil and Military Installations, ISBN 0-9710464-3-3, pp. x, 208; ISTC Science and Technology Series, Vol. 4, ISSN 1536-4593, October 2005. $145.
Volume 3
- Read peer reviews of Superplasticity: Microstructural Refinement and Superplastic Roll Forming.
- Author Oscar Kaibyshev avoids prison term following accusations that shocked the scientific world and prompted international outrage.
- Superplasticity: Microstructural Refinement and Superplastic Roll Forming, ISBN 0-9710464-2-5, pp. xix, 408; ISTC Science and Technology Series, Vol. 3, ISSN 1536-4593, April 2005. $165.
Volume 2
- Read peer reviews of High-Energy Phenomena in Electric Discharges in Dense Gases.
- High-Energy Phenomena in Electric Discharges in Dense Gases: Theory, Experiment, Natural Phenomena, ISBN 0-9710464-1-7, pp. xiii, 360; ISTC Science and Technology Series, Vol. 2, ISSN 1536-4593, March 2003. $145.
Volume 1
- View a catalogue flyer for Design of Knock Sensors.
- Design of Knock Sensors and Piezoaccelerometers, ISBN 0-9710464-0-9, pp. xiv, 176; ISTC Science and Technology Series, Vol. 1, ISSN 1536-4593, March 2002. $115.