If one asset defines Oregon internationally, or could make its boom-and-bust economy more globally competitive, it is the state's identity with environmental stewardship and sustainable business practices.
PORTLAND, Ore. -- If one asset defines Oregon internationally, or could make its boom-and-bust economy more globally competitive, it is the state's identity with environmental stewardship and sustainable business practices.
Believe it or not, this message is sponsored by your statewide business community, which is collectively vowing to go green.
Sustainability was the new rallying cry for more than 1,000 business, academic and legislative leaders who packed the Oregon Convention Center on Thursday for a fifth annual leadership summit on Oregon's economy. It also has become the unifying theme of an economic-development master plan and legislative playbook called the Oregon Business Plan.
Sustainability means different things to different people. But authors of the plan think the concept plays to Oregon's core strengths. Furthermore, it can be infused into many of their initiatives for education, tax reform, health care and economic development.
The new focus is an outgrowth of last year's leadership summit, where Harvard Business School professor and business-strategy guru Michael Porter urged business leaders to focus their laundry list of initiatives on a competitive theme that would complement the state's economic and cultural strengths.
Porter suggested sustainability as a potentially compelling theme in a state that already has an international reputation for land-use planning and recycling initiatives, specialized expertise in areas such as green building, and large employers, such as Nike, Intel and Hewlett-Packard Co., that have folded sustainability into their strategies and brands.
Sustainable business practices also befit a state where core parts of the economy -- agriculture and forest products -- stem from natural resources.
"Economic development in harmony with our planet is not only the right civic thing to do, it's the right business decision," said Allen Alley, chairman of Tualatin-based Pixelworks Inc. and chairman of the business plan's steering committee. "Many of the keys to how this can be accomplished already exist in this state."
At the summit, Gov. Ted Kulongoski announced that Alley would become his deputy chief of staff focused on technology, energy, transportation and economic development.
The open question is whether the business community's vision and strategies for sustainability can mesh with those of the governor and Legislature, or whether they will be perceived as mere rebrandings of the same old business prescriptions for the economy.
The backdrop for this year's summit is a much stronger economy than in years past, with robust job and export growth and venture-capital investment. One byproduct is a forecast of $14.8 billion in state revenue for the next biennium -- a 19 percent increase.
Business leaders on Thursday strongly urged the Legislature to put its budget on a more sustainable footing by dramatically boosting the state's savings accounts. But their Oregon Business Plan was silent on Kulongoski's proposal to divert the corporate kicker tax rebate to a rainy-day fund to protect education and other programs during a downturn.
Kulongoski said he was confident he could eventually win business support for his plan to divert the corporate kicker, which now stands at $275 billion. But officials who helped draft the business plan said they saw the proposal as just one option they wanted to study.
"You can get there a lot of different ways, and we're open to that dialogue," said Malia Wasson, Oregon president of U.S. Bank and the head of the business plan's public finance committee.
The business plan calls for putting at least $1.2 billion aside in a reserve, far beyond the $230 million the state now has socked away.
Business leaders also continue to pressure the state to enact more sweeping tax reforms to lessen its dependence on the income tax, which produces wild swings in tax revenue depending on the economy's health. The business plan praises a proposal developed by a bipartisan group of legislators that would rely heavily on a sales tax.
Sustainability is a key plank of a $38 million package of funding recommendations that the governor-appointed Oregon Innovation Council forwarded to the Legislature. They include $5.2 million for a wave-energy research center and $3 million for a center for "bio economy and sustainable technologies."
Kulongoski also told summit participants that he planned to keep pushing to make the state a leader in alternative energy sources. His major proposal in that arena is a renewable-portfolio standard that would require utilities to serve 25 percent of their retail demand from renewable energy sources by 2025.
Business groups have expressed early opposition to such a standard because they fear it would raise energy prices.
Thursday's conference highlighted the consensus that health care is careening on an unsustainable course.
Peggy Fowler, chief executive of Portland General Electric, said the costs of health benefits sandbag U.S. companies with costs not borne by foreign competitors.
Would-be reformers also agree on many principles for untangling the mess: fostering individual responsibility and awareness of costs; spurring competition among doctors, hospitals and health plans to boost quality and control costs; pooling the buying power of individuals and small employers; and making basic health care and preventive services available to all.
But disagreements abound over how to carry out these principles.
The Oregon Business Plan emphasizes market incentives and competition while maintaining the role of private employers as health care purchasers.
Some summit participants, however, called for scrapping the employer-based system. They included the leaders of an Oregon Senate commission, former Gov. John Kitzhaber's Archimedes Movement and U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore.
Kitzhaber applauded the plan's proposals, but said, "I don't believe they go nearly far enough."
Many cited the state's comparatively small investment in its transportation system as an obstacle to sustainable economic growth.
The business plan recommends an annual spending increase of $300 to $500 million on projects to improve safety and capacity in the state's road system, but does not specify how to pay for it.
Without backing any specific plan, Oregon Senate President Peter Courtney, D-Salem, said he was not afraid to vote for tax increases. "We've got to pay for these things, not just talk about it," he said.
Staff writers Jeff Mapes, Joe Rojas-Burke, Jim Mayer and Steve Carter of The Oregonian contributed to this report.
Source: McClatchy-Tribune Information Services
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