Green business, sound business

While Ford was investing in a green roof for its Red River factory and donating $25 million to the Center for Environmental Leadership, Toyota was focusing on developing a hybrid engine that eventually gave birth to the Prius. This comparison may be a bit simplistic, but it illustrates the different ways that businesses can choose to deal with environmental issues.

All companies today declare that they are concerned about the environment, sometimes by conviction, but more often under pressure from non-profit organizations and increasingly strict regulatory standards. Firms truly committed to protecting the environment, however, often observe that responsible ecological management doesn’t keep them from making money, but quite the opposite!

Just as quality measures have had a positive impact on business performance, environmental measures make good economic sense. Reduce consumption to the essential, minimize waste, recycle old products, etc.: what more logical ways to improve the bottom line?

To implement strategies beneficial to both the environment and their financial results, companies must follow three principles in particular:

– Reinvent the offering to make it both more environmentally friendly and more profitable.

– Rethink production processes to eliminate sources of inefficiency detrimental to the environment.

– Simultaneously pursue environmental and economic objectives at every level.