When Floris Fooij proposed a $1.7 million upgrade for the vitamin plant he oversees in New Jersey a few months ago, he did something he wouldn’t have done in the past: He mapped out for the finance team how the upgrade would affect the firm’s greenhouse-gas emissions.
His employer, the Dutch life-sciences and specialty-materials maker Koninklijke DSM NV, in recent years had tied the bonuses of operational managers such as Mr. Fooij to corporate energy-efficiency and emissions-reduction targets.
That meant that in addition to presenting the business case for the upgrade—it would pay for itself in a few years, according to Mr. Fooij—he also had to demonstrate that it wouldn’t increase the company’s emissions, or risk not getting his full bonus.
