Going green

Nowadays there's a lot of buzz about "green". It's fashionable, it's "chic". Every equipment manufacturer claims to be the most power efficient in its area, and green is used both as a way to say "we are the best because we're the ones to take more out of the hardware" and as a way to improve the corporate social responsibility of the company. But, what's really important about green? Will the new green trends really work to save the planet?


In my opinion, there's only one way to understand green that can work:
green is just another way to make money. From a business point of view, green cannot be another expenditure; if green is planned as a global liability for which all of us (both persons and enterprises) must do an effort, with the "only" compensation of helping to save the planet, corporations won't go. However, if corporations can go green and, at the same time, have an important and quick return of the investment required to be green, improving their gross profit, then we have turned green in an opportunity instead of a cost. Then everybody will be eager to jump into this train.

This is not difficult to do: green means efficiency. It is, for every unit of energy required, have a lower overhead. Corporations have been trying to achieve the maximum efficiency in their finances. Some peope does the same with their personal finances. Industries are always looking for more efficient ways of manufacturing (eg., lean manufacturing). Being efficient means using less resources to do the same or obtaining more out of the same productive resources; so going green is not about putting solar cells in the roof, but instead to look for better ways to do the same. And since better ways to the same means doing the same (or more) with less, it means earning more.
Going green can be understood as doing things as best as possible.

So going green successfuly means just making more money (and a side effect is that doing things right, you help not only your pocket, but also the planet).

What can you do to improve your company products or servicess will being more "green"?