The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), Department of Energy, on July 2010 published the International Energy Outlook 2010 report. The report presents international energy projections through 2035, including outlooks for major energy fuels and associated carbon dioxide emissions (EIA, 2010). Based on the provided data, we prepared two tables.





Table 1 and figure 1 present the ratios of renewable electricity to conventional electricity used in the world. We can directly see the huge difference between Central & South America, with an average of 83%, and all other areas of the world.





Table 2 and figure 2, show tons of Carbon produced by a person per year. The data cover the time frame from 1980 untill 2007.





Due to the increasing public awareness of environmental issues, it becomes a hot topic in governments’ and companies’ politics as well. For example, it is uncommon today to see an election campaign without a proposed environmental policy, section or targets. After a quick look on the two tables and the provided figures, we can see that governments’ policies directly affect our environment. In addition, it may have an effect on the international trade relations. For instance, if Europe reduces the GHG emission and another country do not act upon environmental standards, the business relation between Europe and that country would be hampered.





As we said, emergent social awareness or public interest in environmental issues and governmental policies affect business policies in many ways. Green IT, Green Logistics, nsurance of environmental sustainability and energy efficiency are becoming new challenges or today’s companies. Environmental legislation is exerting additional pressure.


The same holds true for the mass media and society as a whole. Our focus in this paper will be on the SMEs’ sector which is one of the biggest sectors in businesses. For example, ´he European Commission for Enterprise and Industry stated that in 2009, 20 million SMEs operated in the European Union which represents roughly 99% of all businesses (EC-E&I, 2009).


Companies that envision the future and plan in advance will get a competitive advantage in the market. People started to realize the environmental issues, and have shown the interest to know more about the environmental performance of companies before purchasing products.


Similarly,  the companies also market  their products with environment  related slogans and details(Jamous, et al., 2011).  In  the  near  future,  certain  directives  would  be  passed  that  only  those  products  (from organizations) which are compliant with environmental standards will be allowed to be freely
traded, as nowadays with CE standard.


So  companies  that  fail  to  follow  environmental  standards may  risk  losing  the  potential markets  &  customers.  Environmental  directives  would  not  only  be  a  benefit  for  the environment  but  also  for  the  companies;  like  to  use  reusable materials,  reduce  their  costs, improve the processes and make the processes flexible to accept the changes from market.

Bibliography

EC-E&I.  2009.  European  Commission  for  Enterprise  and  Industry.  European  Union.  [Online]  2009. http://ec.europa.eu/enterprise/policies/sme/index_en.htm. EIA. 2010. International Energy Outlook 2010. U.S. Energy Information Administration.  [Online] 2010. Office
of  Integrated  Analysis  and  Forecasting  U.S.  Department  of  Energy,  Washington,  DC  20585.. http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/ieo/pdf/0484(2010).pdf.


Jamous,  Naoum,  et  al.  2011.  Light-weight  composite  environmental  performance  indicators  (LWC-EPI)  concept. [book auth.] Paulina Golinska and Marek Fertsch. [ed.] Jorge Marx Gómez.  Information Technologies in  Environmental  Engineering,  New  Trends  and  Challenges.  Berlin :  Springer,  2011,  Vol.  3,  pp.  289-299. http://www.springerlink.com/content/j86665463452kt25/.