Green is Good Business
Greener Assets was founded on the premise that business plays a major role in environmental issues. The idea that environmental activism is meant to derail the economy is melting into the sunset, replaced by a worldwide awakening that green is good for business.
For starters there’s the job market. In Top 10 Cleantech Jobs, Earth2Tech has put together a list of ten jobs that are emerging and will shape the future of cleantech. The list of course includes specific jobs related to the energy and green building industries, among others, but is more varied and diverse than you’d think.
And then there’s Van Jones, an activist working to combine solutions to social inequality and environmental destruction. Mr. Jones founded the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, which promotes alternatives to violence and incarceration. The City of Oakland has adopted the Ella Baker Center’s “Green Jobs Corps” proposal, and Van is pushing to create the first-ever Green Enterprise Zone in Oakland.
Van Jones on the Green-Collar Solution
The green economy has the power to deliver new sources of work, wealth and health to low-income people—while honoring the Earth. If you can do that, you just wiped out a whole bunch of problems. We can make what is good for poor black kids good for the polar bears and good for the country.
Then there’s the green revolution of Wal-Mart. Likely the most notorious bottom line watching company that springs to mind – granted with either a bitter distaste or a surrendering affection. Wal-Mart’s recent Live Better Sustainability Summit and sustainable initiatives have sent a green ripple out from the mega-retailer that has reached down the supply chain to surprise even the harshest of critics.
Wal-Mart is aggressively investing approximately $500 million annually in technologies and innovation to reduce greenhouse gases emissions, develop a 20% more efficient prototype and increase fleet efficiency by 25 percent in the next 3 years, doubling efficiency in the next 10 years.
Let’s face it, if Wal-Mart is willing to invest this much in sustainability there is a pay-off to going green.
More:
- Wal-Mart’s Sustainability Summit: Greenwashing it was not at TreeHugger
- Van Jones will be at the Bioneers 2007 Conference this weekend.
