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THIS ISSUE'S SPONSOR
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Taking Care of Business
By Joel Makower
The watchwords this week seem to be "efficiency," "productivity," and "stimulus."
Not that the three necessarily go hand in hand; there is little indication that President Obama's economic stimulus efforts are enhancing productivity and profits at the company level. But the presence of several stories on these topics this week provide a glimpse into the Zeitgeist of business and the environment.
The fact that many companies are focused like a laser on productivity and efficiency is not surprising, given the perilous state of the economy. What's encouraging is how much companies are (finally!) tapping their energy and resource use as a font of efficiency gains. Healthcare giant Baxter reported last week that water conservation, energy efficiency, green building projects and other eco-friendly initiatives yielded nearly $12 million in environmental income, savings and cost avoidance last year, helping to ensure the company's health. Meanwhile, Cisco reported that telecommuting has saved the company $277 million by allowing employees to telework. (Of course, Cisco sells technology used by telecommuters. Not to discount its impressive experience, but can any company not selling such equipment cite similarly impressive savings? I'd love to know.)
And then there's the economic stimulus, about which Marc Gunther reports on a web-based tool to track how the $787 billion in federal government largesse is being spent. The website is a private-sector effort that, Gunther reports, is doing a better job than the government itself in keeping us apprised of where all that money is going.
Of course, it's not just the U.S. stimulus: Less reported, at least within the U.S., is the stimulus money being doled out by governments in Europe, Asia, and elsewhere. Canada's government plans to help it pulp and paper producers improve their environmental efficiency in order to level the playing field between that country's pulp and paper industry and its U.S. competitors. And the German company Siemens reported last week that it is expecting $8 billion in new orders for green technology from government stimulus programs from around the world. That, as the saying goes, is real money.
"Real money" will be a growing theme in the world of green business, as the stakes -- and opportunities -- grow ever larger. Last week's passage in the U.S. House of Representatives of cap-and-trade legislation foreshadows an era in which a company's environmental performance becomes key to its competitive advantage. That already is the case in some sectors of the economy, but recent developments -- as evidenced by the growing litany of stories we're reporting -- suggest that the risks of inaction, and the rewards for leadership, are becoming increasingly harder to ignore.
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GreenBiz Radio
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Tracking the Stimulus Spending with Recovery.org
By Marc Gunther
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GreenBiz.com's senior writer Marc Gunther speaks with Eric Gillespie, the CIO of Onvia about how his firm's website, Recovery.org, is helping companies track federal stimulus spending -- and get a slice of the pie.... Listen
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