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The Green Revolution: Time to Get Smart
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The Green movement may have propagated to a level of eye-rolling ubiquity, but as annoying as it is to feel guilty about using a plastic spoon or be bombarded by Mother Earth silkscreened onto T-shirts, there is one truth upon which all this craze is built: The current way businesses operate is often wasteful, irresponsible, and inefficient.
Regardless about how trite “going green” may seem, the movement is immune to skeptics and apathetics. Why? Simple – there are better and smarter ways of doing business. Going green is not just about companies proclaiming that they recycle, spinning it into a marketing campaign, and getting good PR. It is about companies strategically leveraging the benefits of becoming environmentally responsible by finding more efficient ways of operating through the utilization of new technology and methods of functioning.
New organizations have been cropping up in order to aid businesses in this transition. California, the notoriously liberal state that we are, is a leader in having cities adopt new oaths of efficiency, with groups offering services that can promote smarter and more responsible ways of living. The Sustainable Works Greening Program helps educate companies in Santa Monica (for free!) on reducing and diverting solid waste, becoming water efficient, eliminating toxic chemicals, minimizing transportation impacts, reducing energy use, and improving purchasing choices. As a non-profit environmental organization, Sustainable Works provides businesses with the tools they need to implement environmental actions and policies company- wide. They make assessments, recommendations, and track the progress of companies they help (www.sustainableworks.org).
Large corporations have already been reevaluating and researching better methods for their business. For instance, Taco Bell has implemented a new cooking method, installing water and energy saving electric grills to conserve 300 million gallons of water per year. Changes such as this usually have more than a two-fold benefit, conserving in more than one realm of energy. The new Grill-to-Order will also save up to 200 million kwH of electricity per year and 1.2 million therms of gas each year by not heating water.
In times when many companies are struggling just to stay out of the red, talking about going green may be the last thing on their mind. But instead of seeing the environmental movement as another company obligation, all business owners should be seeing it as an opportunity to stay one step ahead of their competitors. By capitalizing on innovative and efficient new methods of operating, these companies will ultimately improve their bottom line, remain leaders of their industry, and achieve better quality products to stay ahead of the curve. To quote John Holmes, from The Economist, “In the longer term, we need a green revolution in every sense of the term: agriculturally productive, environmentally sustainable, and economically profitable.” So what better time to start than now?
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