How Green Is a Green Business Really?
When former VP Al Gore produced his Oscar-winner 'An Inconvenient Truth', and brought environmental consciousness to the public, there were lots of businesses going green already.
It wasn't that they were ahead of the curve doing what was best for planet Earth.
It's just that green business practices can often be more profitable.
Getting new energy-efficient equipment for instance can save millions for any company.
Wal-Mart for instance is turning itself ruthlessly efficient and cutting out unnecessary packing materials and other such waste.
Since the retailer is so large, when it asks its suppliers all around the world to cut down on wasteful packing material, they all jump.
Of course these businesses would be glad to let you think that they do this because they have Mother Earth in mind.
But you do know better.
So okay, green business practices make financial sense.
But there is a point beyond which being environmentally conscious behaviour actually loses money for a company.
What do they do then? They fudge facts, of course.
The thing is, while the FTC does have lots of rules for what a company has to do to be able to claim credit for being green in any way, lots of businesses don't really do half of what they say.
The FTC may have rules - but it never goes to check who's out of line.
The small green business is always trying to sell you little precious ideas - shampoos made out of essential oils, cleaning products that contain no ammonia and that come out of agricultural waste, and so on.
Did you ever give any thought to the possibility that these could be less green than the chemicas-stuffed mass-produced products you get at Wal-Mart? Lots of mega-retailers, Wal-Mart included will only sell concentrated cleaning products.
What this means is, you only have to buy one package of a product in concentrated form as opposed to five of the environmentally friendly non-concentrated stuff.
While small green business might love producing products that are great in themselves, producing non-concentrated stuff makes them use five times as much packaging.
And the packaging, more than the product itself, is what causes all the environmental harm.
The same goes for companies that use unrecyclable Styrofoam and plastic packaging materials.
The alternatives tend to be heavier, and they tend to use more fuel in the transportation process.
And that's where the real damage to the environment comes from.
And finally, green business houses will often give green with one hand, only to take it away with the other.
Companies like Toyota make great hybrid cars to help the environment of course.
But then, they will also spend millions to try to get the government to take back some of its environment protection laws.
The moral of the lesson is, it's very difficult to tell who was really green.
And it will be that way until human nature changes.
It wasn't that they were ahead of the curve doing what was best for planet Earth.
It's just that green business practices can often be more profitable.
Getting new energy-efficient equipment for instance can save millions for any company.
Wal-Mart for instance is turning itself ruthlessly efficient and cutting out unnecessary packing materials and other such waste.
Since the retailer is so large, when it asks its suppliers all around the world to cut down on wasteful packing material, they all jump.
Of course these businesses would be glad to let you think that they do this because they have Mother Earth in mind.
But you do know better.
So okay, green business practices make financial sense.
But there is a point beyond which being environmentally conscious behaviour actually loses money for a company.
What do they do then? They fudge facts, of course.
The thing is, while the FTC does have lots of rules for what a company has to do to be able to claim credit for being green in any way, lots of businesses don't really do half of what they say.
The FTC may have rules - but it never goes to check who's out of line.
The small green business is always trying to sell you little precious ideas - shampoos made out of essential oils, cleaning products that contain no ammonia and that come out of agricultural waste, and so on.
Did you ever give any thought to the possibility that these could be less green than the chemicas-stuffed mass-produced products you get at Wal-Mart? Lots of mega-retailers, Wal-Mart included will only sell concentrated cleaning products.
What this means is, you only have to buy one package of a product in concentrated form as opposed to five of the environmentally friendly non-concentrated stuff.
While small green business might love producing products that are great in themselves, producing non-concentrated stuff makes them use five times as much packaging.
And the packaging, more than the product itself, is what causes all the environmental harm.
The same goes for companies that use unrecyclable Styrofoam and plastic packaging materials.
The alternatives tend to be heavier, and they tend to use more fuel in the transportation process.
And that's where the real damage to the environment comes from.
And finally, green business houses will often give green with one hand, only to take it away with the other.
Companies like Toyota make great hybrid cars to help the environment of course.
But then, they will also spend millions to try to get the government to take back some of its environment protection laws.
The moral of the lesson is, it's very difficult to tell who was really green.
And it will be that way until human nature changes.
Source...