CEOS FROM EVERY SECTOR OF THE ECONOMY TO ADOPT BUSINESS STRATEGIES AND PROJECTS THAT BENEFIT SOCIETY, ENVIRONMENT AND ECONOMY

Washington, D.C., Sept. 21, 2005 - Seeking to leverage the power of business as a force for good, Business Roundtable today launched a sustainable growth initiative encouraging leading U.S. companies to embrace business strategies and projects that measurably improve Society, the Environment and the Economy.

The initiative, called S.E.E. Change, encourages CEOs of the nation's leading companies to commit to business strategies that combine traditional corporate goals of higher profit and lower cost with a strong commitment to environmental stewardship and social improvement. Roundtable companies will be asked to set challenging goals that contribute to both the bottom line and improvements to the quality of life - now and for future generations.

"Businesses are in business to generate growth, but sustaining growth is more complicated," said Charles O. Holliday, Jr., Chairman of the Roundtable's Environment, Technology & the Economy Task Force and Chairman and CEO of DuPont. "The purpose of S.E.E. Change is to urge companies to adopt business strategies and projects that are good for the environment and society - and good for their bottom line."

Among the first Roundtable companies to commit to participate in S.E.E. Change are: 3M, Alcoa, American Electric Power, Citigroup, Coca Cola, Dow, DuPont, Eastman Kodak, FPL Group, General Electric, General Motors, HSBC, ITT Industries, Office Depot, Procter & Gamble, Sun Microsystems, Weyerhaeuser and Xerox, and the Global Environmental Management Initiative (GEMI) will also be a partner. As a mark of the significance placed on this initiative, the Roundtable is running full-page advertisements in major national newspapers including The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Washington Post and USA Today.

S.E.E. Change companies will adopt sustainable growth strategies, which seek to achieve specific improvements in environmental, social and economic performance. For example, companies might utilize the technologies resulting from research and development to reduce energy consumption, provide clean water, improve hygiene or prevent disease. And by investing in health care, education and training, companies can help create stable and skilled workforces and strong markets for their products and services. Because of the diversity of the Roundtable's 160 member companies, spanning every sector of the economy, S.E.E. Change is designed to give companies flexibility in determining goals in line with their sector and business priorities.

To help companies measure and report performance, the Roundtable is encouraging the use of a thorough set of metrics. These metrics could cover traditional "reduced footprint" or "eco-efficiency" measures that track natural resources or energy consumed per unit of economic output, but also include "value-added" metrics to assess the business impacts of sustainable investments. These metrics could measure, for example, the environmental improvement or enhanced quality of life resulting from innovations that lead to valuable new products, technologies or marketing strategies.

The initiative will include a focused effort to encourage better management of the quality, quantity and availability of water resources.

"Without water, nothing is sustainable," Holliday said. "Through S.E.E. Change, the Roundtable is raising awareness of this precious resource and encouraging company efforts to improve water quality, quantity and availability. It's not a requirement, but we're urging every company to consider a sustainable growth project that addresses water."

The Roundtable will also seek partnerships with government and other stakeholders that share a common interest in applying sustainability principles.

CEOs Declare Commitment to S.E.E. Change
"With several million new people joining the global network each week, now more than ever it is critical that organizations more efficiently deal with the increasing demands placed on their technology infrastructure," said Scott McNealy, Chairman and CEO, Sun Microsystems. "As the global market expands, sustainable computing can help companies dramatically cut costs on data center environmentals such as power and cooling, while still significantly increasing capabilities of the computers that power the network. We are pleased to join Business Roundtable's S.E.E. Change initiative and challenge other companies in Silicon Valley to invest in sustainable growth initiatives that will ultimately allow everyone in the world to participate on the network."

"Experience tells us that sustainable business practices are not only socially responsible but financially smart," said Anne M. Mulcahy, Xerox Chairman and CEO. "Though Xerox's corporate citizenship successes already are a source of pride, the challenges evolving across societal, environmental and economic spheres mean all of us must aim for even higher levels of performance."

"As scientists and as business people, we at Dow are well aware of the importance of setting unambiguous goals, measuring our performance against them and reporting regularly on our progress," said Andrew N. Liveris, President and CEO of The Dow Chemical Company. "Our stakeholders - investors, employees, customers, suppliers, and the people in the communities where we live and work - want to know how we are performing in each sphere of sustainability: social, environmental and economic. It is our belief that the best companies are able to perform well in all three and that doing so is critical to their own sustainability."

"Energy, particularly electricity, lies at the heart of sustainable development; it powers economic and social progress and also impacts the environment," said Michael Morris, Chairman, President and CEO of American Electric Power. "For AEP - as the United States' largest generator of electricity - the production of such an important commodity carries many responsibilities. As a society and as a company, we grow more conscious every day of the impact that our actions have on the environment, the communities we serve, our customers and our employees. AEP is involved in sustainable development in a variety of areas, but our efforts are exemplified by our involvement in the Chicago Climate Exchange, where we are voluntarily reducing or offsetting our greenhouse gas emissions, and by our plans to build the first commercial scale Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle plant."

"Sustainable growth is the nature of our business," said Steve Odland, Chairman and CEO of Office Depot. "We believe in 'doing well by doing good' and are committed to environmental stewardship and the conservation of natural resources. Our commitment to S.E.E. Change is consistent with our environmental strategy, which is values-based and market-driven, and can be summed up in three words - Responsible, Transparent and Accountable. It is a strategy that builds business value while paying dividends to our shareholders, our environment and our society."

S.E.E. Change builds on the Roundtable's history of economic and environmental leadership, notably Blueprint 2001 and Climate RESOLVE (Responsible Environmental Steps, Opportunities to Lead by Voluntary Efforts). Climate RESOLVE, launched in 2003, mobilized the resources and expertise of Roundtable member companies behind the goal of enhanced voluntary action to control greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and improve the GHG intensity of the U.S. economy.

"Roundtable CEOs recognize that their responsibility to society and the environment goes hand- in-hand with their role in sustaining the economic growth necessary to support expanding populations," said John J. Castellani, President of the Roundtable. "S.E.E. Change ties these benefits together in a way that makes for better business and a better world."

Business Roundtable (www.businessroundtable.org) is an association of chief executive officers of leading corporations with a combined workforce of more than 10 million employees and $4 trillion in annual revenues. The chief executives are committed to advocating public policies that foster vigorous economic growth and a dynamic global economy.