Most plants, factories and industrial systems were designed decades ago when the consequences of pollution and waste were not really considered. Now, companies are working to reduce their "environmental footprint," and not just for long-term humanitarian reasons. Irrespective of whether or not man-made pollution is only a contributing factor to natural global warming, "green" is gaining more attention because of the real profit opportunities. Further, many businesses are starting to recognize the competitive dangers of lagging behind.

Payoffs

Hybrid cars are perhaps the best-known recent success story. Instead of innovating, U.S. automakers were lobbying against tougher emission standards, and kept introducing gas-guzzling trucks and sport utility vehicles (SUVs). Meanwhile, Toyota and Honda started investing a decade ago to compete with less fuel usage and fewer emissions. Now they are benefiting by environmental regulations as well as the jump in oil prices.

Here are some examples of how "green is good," not just for the environment, but for the resulting direct savings and profits:

• General Mills used to pay to have oat hulls, a Cheerios by-product, hauled away. But the company recognized that this could be burned as fuel, and customers now compete to buy the stuff. In 2006, General Mills recycled 86 percent of its solid waste, replacing disposal costs with profits.
• Procter & Gamble and others are converting detergents to double and triple concentration, saving millions of gallons of transportation fuel, millions of pounds of plastic resin and tons of cardboard.
• Intel and other silicon-chip producers used to dump unusable silicon wafers as waste. But they found that some of those chips have real value; they work fine in solar cells. Today, chip makers are scrambling into a new market valued at $750 million. In addition to just reuse of silicon, tons of carbon-monoxide emissions are eliminated, with savings of millions of watts of electric power.
• Many offices, factories, hospitals and stores have begun to install natural lighting through solar tubes and skylights, supplemented by energy-efficient lighting. The energy and money savings are enormous.

The idea of "green" goes beyond the good feeling that we’re saving the environment; it brings enormous opportunities for savings and profits. Take a minute to do a green review of your own office, factory or plant.