Internal research published by scientists at Exxon (now ExxonMobil) as early as 1977 predicted that global warming, caused by the burning of fossil fuels, would heat up the Earth by about 0.2 degrees C per decade. A 2023 Harvard analysis found that Exxon’s projections proved more accurate than many of those coming from government and independent labs.
Despite industry stalling and government backsliding, climate change’s impact is only deepening and accelerating. It’s a threat not just to human health, but to any business that ignores the changing economics of energy and emissions. The 2026 oil price spikes due to the Strait of Hormuz blockage have further accelerated the energy transition globally.
Today, many companies are watering down their climate commitments, from carbon pricing to electric vehicle mandates, because they fear the energy transition will be too costly and complicated. But nothing could be farther from the truth. As the climate crisis intensifies, CEOs and their teams who are not actively working on these issues risk significant financial hits to their business.
More to the point, reducing your company’s energy consumption and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions can be a strategic-planning exercise to deepen your competitive advantage that will reduce costs, improve productivity and transform your business for the better – even as it relieves the pressure on the planet.
For many businesses, energy is their second-biggest operational cost. And with industrial carbon pricing, geopolitical instability, and electricity demand increasing faster than supply, costs will continue to rise.
As with many other complex challenges, the sooner you apply new thinking to your energy needs, the sooner you begin reaping the benefits.
The proof? My energy and carbon consulting firm, Thorn Associates, has been producing positive results for our mining and heavy-industry clients since we were founded in 2017. Client interest in decarbonization really took off in 2021 – trading out fossil fuels for renewable diesel, electric furnaces, solar and wind power, and heat pumps. We've helped our clients rethink their approach to energy, discover new technologies that can cut their costs by up to 40% over four years, shrink carbon emissions, reduce water use – and create more positive workplace cultures. (As you may know, it’s hard to find bright young recruits who don't care about saving the planet, and they really want to work for companies that are doing something about it.)
“It’s hard to find bright young recruits who don’t care about saving the planet.”
With today’s volatile energy markets, these are all benefits you can't afford to put off.
Given the current politics of energy, and all the misinformation out there, I want to remind decision-makers that the energy transition represents a real opportunity to reap the many benefits of the green revolution.
At Thorn, we begin our projects by identifying the key drivers of our clients’ energy consumption. Then we use our deep expertise and proprietary tools to uncover and unlock new opportunities to save on energy and carbon costs. Given how quickly things are changing, there really aren’t enough companies doing this kind of work. (For eight years, I was one of just five Certified Energy Manager [CEM] instructors in Canada, and we need lots more.)
By starting with an energy audit, we can usually help a client reduce its energy use by 10% per year or more. Keep in mind, that’s a recurring saving, going straight to their bottom lines every year. On top of that, clients usually save another 10% of the energy savings in the form of carbon cost reduction. If clients are planning a major expansion or building a new facility, we can usually help them find additional savings of between 20% and 40%. Even better, we keep abreast of the latest government and utility incentive funding, to provide clients a way to offset a material portion of study and project costs – in some cases, up to 75%.
There are also other benefits that come from managing carbon better. For some firms, if you can show you're reducing emissions, it will speed up your environmental permitting. Because new electricity capacity is often limited these days, we are seeing utilities provide priority new electrical grid capacity for those companies with robust decarbonization plans that wish to open a new facility or undertake a large expansion. Using electric vehicles in a mine reduces heat, dust and carcinogens, so decarbonization also improves miners’ working conditions.
As specialists in energy management, our team of 15 energy professionals can usually find greater savings and efficiencies than the big engineering firms, because we live and breathe these systems all day long. For us, energy use and GHG emissions are not an afterthought. It’s our core purpose. Clients benefit from our deep process knowledge, our nimbleness and from working directly with the firm’s founder.
Most importantly, we create systems that help companies track their energy use and carbon. You don't just need an energy manager – you need systems in place so you don’t lose all your documentation in case your energy manager retires early. In many cases, the finance people issuing the cheques for a company’s carbon costs don't know what they're paying for – or how those payments can be mitigated. And of course, we help companies get certified – or just meet energy management standards (e.g. ISO 50001) if they don't want to go through the bureaucracy of certification.
“You don’t just need an energy manager—you need systems in place.”
Best of all, our clients are prepared for the future. An international chemical manufacturer came to us in 2022 to create a full decarbonization roadmap, aligned with the Paris Agreement. We looked at every operation and examined every decarbonization lever. Our report went straight to the C-suite, and that has now enabled the company to cut its emissions by 40% in only four years!
And now they're taking it to the next level. We've identified the carbon footprint of some of the products they manufacture, based on the materials used (along with their embedded carbon emissions) and the manufacturing process. In the future, we believe this full disclosure will become mandatory. Some of their customers are already asking for it. There will be a race to reduce all emissions – and this client wants to win.
Preparing for a net-zero world sounds difficult and ominous. But climate risk is real. If your organization can wiggle some initial funding to get started, those savings will fund ongoing energy reductions. It’s a virtuous circle. On the other side is a better world, for your business, your customers, your suppliers, and the planet.
Emily Thorn Corthay is the Founder and CEO of Thorn Associates, and has served on the board of the Ontario Professional Engineers (three years) and StepUp in Energy Management (six years). She is a Professional Engineer with degrees from the University of Waterloo and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne. In 2025, she was named a Canada’s Clean 50 award winner, as an “exceptional contributor to the clean economy.