In the name of increasing profits, of all things, more and more German companies are discovering climate protection. With increasingly stringent emissions laws and energy prices higher than they’ve been in years, sustainability has suddenly become a factor in economic growth. But can the new trend last?

Environmentalists usually devote most of their attention to such garden-variety endangered species as the brooding corncrake. But Winfried Hser, an environmental strategist with Germany’s postal service, Deutsche Post, focuses his attention on another, equally sensitive species: the pin-striped financial analyst.

Hser regularly meets with the professional financial investors of international banks like Credit Agricole and HSBC to tell them about all the things his Bonn-based, internationally active logistics organization is doing for the environment. Once they’ve heard Hser’s presentation, the investors usually fire back with questions about Deutsche Post’s progress on reducing its CO2 emissions and how many of the company’s 130,000 vehicles are already running on biofuels. The financial world suddenly has a burning interest in the answers to these and other questions about preserving the environment.

This is quite a sea change. In the past, no more than a handful of concerned shareholders would demand answers to their questions about the environment at annual company meetings. Critics of poor corporate environmental records were usually minor shareholders — the kinds of troublemakers financial executives and CEOs rarely took seriously.

But nowadays the people asking the environmentally tough questions often control investments that run into the billions. They work for banks and mutual funds, and they look for attractive investment opportunities for the capital they manage.

Crisis-Proof Profits

Far from being driven by some noble-minded aim of saving the world, these masters of our money are mainly looking for one thing: profit, and as crisis-proof as possible.

This new environmental interest among powerful investors is probably the most salient indication of the important role climate change and its consequences now play in the economy. The issue has made it into the corner offices of top executives, and not just in companies already known for their support of environmental issues, such as German mail-order giant Otto and baby food manufacturer Hipp.

Companies in all sectors of the economy are suddenly examining their businesses to determine how sustainable and environmentally conscious they are in fact doing business. They are not doing this out of pure altruism. Instead, companies find themselves forced to adjust to new realities, including stricter environmental laws and the ever-rising cost of coal, natural gas, oil and electricity. In the process, some are even discovering ways to develop entirely new businesses.

Climate protection is becoming an important competitive factor. For this reason, companies are looking for strategies on how to address the issue in the future.

October 27, 2007 — Embattled Countrywide Financial, the nation’s biggest home-mortgage lender, lost a whopping $1.2 billion in the third quarter - its first quarterly loss in 25 years.

But Countrywide’s shares surged as much as 34 percent after its Bronx-born CEO, Angelo Mozilo, assured investors that the company would return to profitability this quarter.

Mozilo’s surprisingly upbeat outlook eased investor jitters about a possible meltdown of the mortgage lender, which has slashed jobs and borrowed billions to stay in business as scads of homeowners default on their loans.

“We continue to be bullish about the long-term prospects of both Countrywide and our industry,” Mozilo, 68, said during a conference call to discuss the financial results.

By adding liquidity, reducing its exposure to the riskiest loans and cutting as many as 12,000 jobs, Countrywide has “a much better chance of success than any other player in the mortgage space today,” Mozilo said.

Countrywide’s stock price gained 32 percent, or $4.23, to $17.30 a share on the New York Stock Exchange yesterday. The stock has lost nearly 70 percent of its market value this year.

Some Wall Street observers were skeptical of management’s prediction of such a quick recovery.

“They have drawn a line in the sand and they are looking for the fourth quarter to be profitable,” said Fitch ratings analyst Vince Arscott. “We think that will be difficult.”

Countrywide lost $2.85 a share in the third quarter. Analysts had forecast a loss of $1.28 per share.

janet.whitman@nypost.com

Beresfords, a tiny firm of solicitors in Doncaster, has received 123m from the taxpayer by winning compensation claims on behalf of coal miners for work-related diseases, new government figures show.

The head of the firm, Jim Beresford, had a personal salary of 16.7m in 2006 and two partners - one of whom was his daughter Esta - shared a further 3.7m between them last year.

The largesse ultimately came out of a high court victory by miners nearly 10 years ago when British Coal and the National Coal Board were found to be negligent with the health of their staff.

Beresfords is just one law firm that has transformed its fortunes through the government-backed compensation schemes. But the schemes have also led to many partners facing the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal in what has become the biggest single-issue set of cases handled by the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA).

Other solicitors to benefit from the compensation schemes include Thompsons, which made 131m, Raleys, of Barnsley, with 77m, and Watson Burton, which received 32m. The payments come from representing miners’ claims for compensation for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and vibration white finger, said Lord Drayson, a business minister, in response to parliamentary questions from Lord Lofthouse of Pontefract.

The government confirmed last night that more than 1bn has been paid to lawyers while 3.4bn has gone to 566,000 miners. More than 150,000 claims have still to be processed.

Lord Lofthouse said it was “staggering” that nearly 70% of claimants received less than the cost of administering them under the Coal Health Compensation Schemes.

Lord Drayson blamed it on the way the high court rulings were worded. “Each claim is assessed individually and takes into account a number of factors including employment and medical histories. The department has sought to minimise the administrative costs of the scheme but these costs indicate the scale and complexity of the process required,” he said.

The department of business, enterprise and regulatory reform has already taken steps to cut by 100m the legal cost of claims for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease through a fast-track compensation scheme and is negotiating a lower tariff for vibration white finger claims, he added.

The SRA said that Jim Beresford and his partner Douglas Smith were among those who must face the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal. That particular case involved “relationships with third parties”, but the SRA declined to give further details.

Mark Farrell, chief executive of Beresfords, said his firm had represented more claimants than any other - 92,482. “Beresfords received many claims over a number of years. It is fair to say, therefore, that the fees generated reflected several years’ work which has been truncated into a short period of time due to the introduction of a fast-track scheme.”

Asked about the investigation, Mr Farrell said: “The Solicitors Regulation Authority are looking into the handling of claims with a number of solicitors firms across the UK. Beresfords are one of approximately 60 firms who have been or who are waiting to hear from the SRA in relation to the scheme.”

A handful of disciplinary cases have already been heard by Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunals. On June 25 the senior partner at Gabb & Co of Abergavenny was fined 15,000 plus costs. MLM Solicitors of Cardiff was also successfully referred to the tribunal in March by the SRA, it said.

Some politicians are trying to amend the Legal Services Bill in the final stages of parliament to raise the money that can be levied on those firms guilty of malpractice.

Alongside specific complaints for malpractice there have also been more than 2,000 allegations of poor service to the legal complaints service.

A critical report by the National Audit Office released in July estimated that the total cost of administering the compensation schemes was likely to reach 2.3bn.

Disquiet about the compensation cases reached the Law Society in 1999 when an MP brought a complaint on behalf of two former miners.

The row forced Fiona Woolf, president of the Law Society, to defend her profession. “I am determined not to allow all solicitors involved in the miners’ compensation cases to be tarred with the same brush as a result of the misdeeds of a minority,” she wrote to one MP, Kevan Jones. “The great majority of solicitors engaged in this work have not been guilty of misconduct of any sort.”