The false green choice before us?

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The question in vogue these days is whether your company "lives green" or just "wants green".   Do companies idealistically support green practices because they are better for the planet and our grandchildren?  Or do we just want to make more money (which is "green" colored in the USA).   I think it's a false alternative and more of us are acting on the basis of both sustainability and profit motives as they re-enforce each other.   This is one case where we can have our cake and eat it too.  The more the better.

Companies no longer can ignore the benefits of making environmentally sustainable operations and IT decisions.  This is something that TelecomTV explores in their "Green Planet: Sustainable ICT"  documentary, which you should check out  at http://www.telecomtv.com/comspace_videoDetail.aspx?v=3619&id=284a8e78-7727-455b-9e5f-8a81545141e7#  As I see it, there are two key motivators that intersect idealism and the profit motive in going "green," whether a company is trying to grow its business or ward off competitors.

The first is the economic benefit of sustainability, or green choices in running your business.  For companies on the offensive, energy is a no longer a trivial OPEX item.  Adopting sustainable practices in IT can reduce costs associated with the space, power and cooling of datacenters and network service centers.  By auditing the use of equipment, cycling unused inventory, virtualizing servers and the core of the network infrastructure, employing energy-efficient solutions, and carefully running the space hotter, a company can garner savings that can be used to fund revenue-increasing areas of the business.   In the process, it can reduce the carbon emissions and impact on the environment of operations too.  It's a win-win.

Governments are adding to the motivation to reduce our carbon footprint.   With regulatory requirements and new legislation coming our way rapidly, we're moving actively to minimize risks to the business associated with climate change and compliance globally.   This is important for companies in more climate change-progressive areas of the world, such as Japan and the EU.  Regulations in these areas have already forced companies to reduce their consumption and emissions, and they are coming up with innovative ways to do so.   While we are reducing our environmental impact and saving money, we can also avoid fines and penalties for non-compliance.  .

The second benefit of going "green" is that our products are better because of it.  When we develop products with lower carbon and toxic footprints, we can drive costs down.   When we reduce packaging and increase recyclability, we save money for our customers.   When we engineer more energy efficient products, we increase their lifetime and improve their ROI in the market.   These benefits are not an either/or choice.   Our products are better and more efficient while they reduce impact on the environment.  These savings help our customers' bottom line and they help our bottom line.     Better for the planet means better for our customers and shareholders too.

The third benefit of "greening" our business is a broad and social one.  The network can be used to catalyze new solutions to both the climate change and resource depletion issues.  If we're talking about the environmental benefits of the network, it's easy to find examples of efficiency and decreased footprint driven by a careful look at how we all remotely interact to deliver goods and services.  People don't have to get into a polluting car to drive to an office to work, because work is not a place but rather in the cloud.  So all of us, including employees, can work from home or wherever we have an internet connection and a computer.  And with more movies and music and information being delivered online, rather than in fixed physical form, we see reduced production, transportation and disposal costs.  While we know these virtual goods and services use energy and create carbon emissions, they do so more efficiently with greater ROI per unit of energy usage.  Companies can manage their buildings through the network, optimizing heating, cooling and lighting to appropriate levels.  And as utilities and municipalities explore smart grids for electricity delivery, consumers and businesses will feel the impact and efficiencies the network can bring.

Socioeconomic benefits of the network will empower peoples who have been historically under-resourced, and under-served by education, healthcare, and business opportunities to develop rapidly.  The access to information and resources provided by the network-whether over a mobile phone, netbook computer, a la One Laptop Per Child, or at an internet café, will ensure individuals have the opportunity to improve their lives, communities and economies.

So it's not a choice of doing business or good, of living green or making green.  Instead it's an opportunity to do well at business, while doing good for the planet.  I think that's an opportunity that's too good to pass up.