What value does 'green' have in business?

Sooner or later, your clients will be able to figure out whether your product is green or not, and I would like to make that time sooner than later. Why? Am I such a sour puss that I want to ruin the day of the person who is ripping you off?

When a new buzz word comes out that is attracting billions of dollars in the US market, businesses jump on that bandwagon. The same thing happened with the food industry. Take Special K, for example. Special K is touted as a diet or health food. Take a look at the ingredients, however, and take special note of the High Fructose Corn syrup. This is hardly diet food or healthy! Besides being a cheap food ingredient specially formulated for mass production, High Fructose Corn Syrup prevents you from losing weight! What the? I can hardly stand it.

Within the 'green' industry there are many products that say they are green, but if you were to compare the product to a truly green product, you would laugh…or cry. The buzz word for this is 'greenwashing'. Take this for example, taken from the greenbiz.com web site:

Procter & Gamble’s Tide Pure Essentials Detergents, with their earth-tone packaging and "naturally inspired scents," turn Tide into a green wanna-be. Consumers believe they’re doing the right thing for their families and the environment by choosing Pure Essentials. But according to P&G’s Material Safety Data Sheets, Tide Pure Essentials products are identical to conventional Tide!

I’m sure we’re all stupid enough at times to just grab what’s green and get out of the store, and eventually the faith in the companies who use these marketing tactics will be lost. Until that day comes, what should we do? Educate yourself on the finer points of being green.

So what makes a product 'Green'? In my previous post, I wrote that being green is "being proactive about your effect on the environment in your personal and professional life." So this definition really fits towards you and what you are doing in your personal life.

We all know we are going to have 'Certified Green' stamps coming out in the next five years. So how will the people who write those standards come up with that?

Right now, there are several ways to be green in business. Everything is on a sliding scale. You have to determine how far you are willing to go to get green products.

There are products, operations, and wholly fanatical methods to tout yourself as being green.

Products that are green are made from ‘renewable resources’, which is a whole other episode! Read what ‘renewable resources’ actually went in to that product and make sure you know what it is. The company might say this couch was made from redwoods in the California Redwoods Park, and you may think Oh, okay! But really, the redwoods are a protected tree.

Operations protocols can also be green. For instance, a nuclear plant may hold its over-heated water in a cooling tank before releasing it into the surrounding wet lands. Or, a company might buy carbon emission offsets because they don’t have enough capital or the ability to buy local renewable energy. Or a business might say they are green because they are using fluorescent light bulbs! You need to pick and choose what fits your standard of green.

The fanatical methods, that I’m not exactly opposed to, are the creative types that use green methods throughout every facet of life. They only eat at the local-food eatery, they ‘drive’ a bike, they refuse to use air conditioning in the office, etc. Do whatever you need to do, just don't look down on me when I don't compost all of my table scraps.

Tomorrow I will delve into the specifics of green products.