Another Earth Day is here (and gone). It’s probably trite to say, “Hey, every day is Earth Day”, but I’ll give it a go. Yes, we need to worry about Earth stuff every day, but not just because the planet is in peril – which is a pretty good reason. Think of it this way: the Earth is often metaphorically compared to our home and, as a fairly recent homeowner, I can tell you that your home needs care and feeding much, much more than once a year (my small lawn of non-pesticide laden, eco-cared-for grass and natural weeds grows really fast). It’s a constant battle to keep a house running smoothly and providing for you and your family.

But let’s take a business perspective. Minding your costs, taking care of your assets, figuring out and fulfilling customer needs – all part of green value creation – are best done consistently and aggressively, not just in big flashy moments of marketing excitement. The days of “plant a tree” Earth Day celebrations being the only thing companies do are over. But many execs still see green as a checkbox exercise, not a corporate mandate and core strategy – do a few things such as retrofitting a facility or putting together a CSR report and move on.

But the environmental work we have ahead of us will be hard and ongoing. Luckily, it should get easier over time. Like the “flywheel” analogy from the bestseller Good to Great, you keep pushing away, and you start to get some real momentum.

All this relates to a question I’ve been struggling with lately: Does it matter if a company or its execs believe in climate change and other environmental imperatives? What got me started on this weeks ago was GM Vice Chairman Bob Lutz’ comment that “global warming is a crock of s***.” And at nearly every talk I give on green business, people at all levels in companies from CEOs down inform me that climate change is not real.

My approach in these moments has generally been to stay quiet or point out that it doesn’t really matter whether you believe it or not, as long as you buy that going green is good for business. If you’re still pursuing green value through, say, eco-efficiency or product innovation, then who cares what you believe. This is basically what Lutz went on to say after his more colorful remarks ("My thoughts on what has or hasn't been the cause of climate change have nothing to do with the decisions I make to advance the cause of General Motors”). This general idea that you don’t really need the first half of the Green Wave (made up of natural forces/pressures and stakeholders), is a key point my co-author and I make in our book Green to Gold.

But I’m beginning to wonder.

Yes, in the short run, you can go down a profitable green path with the conviction that if enough of your stakeholders care, it’s good for business. But what about in the longer-run, as the excitement that’s swept the business world quiets down and we have to make this new green way of doing business work?

Innovation is hard. Creating new products and services and finding new markets for them is hard. Handling what may be a permanent rise in the cost of all commodities and thus the cost of doing business is extremely hard. Won’t all these pursuits go a lot easier if there’s a bit more on the line than “well, we just have to do this because our competitors are doing it and customers are asking for it”? Won’t employees drive harder if they and their bosses believe the underpinnings of why it’s good for business? When Shell CEO Jeroen van der Veer said recently that dealing with climate change “will be hard work and there is little time,” I believe his employees appreciated the blunt honesty and could set their nose to the flywheel/grindstone.

So does belief matter? I don’t have the answer, but I have my suspicions. The now oft-told green business success story of the Toyota Prius still speaks volumes – the company set out to make an environmental car. It wasn’t just an efficiency pursuit, but a real belief that the 21st century needed a form of transportation that reduced environmental burden. Going forward, GM may have trouble matching Toyota’s innovations if attitudes remain so different.

In the end, doesn’t it hurt morale, creativity, and productivity to hear your boss say one of the biggest drivers for action is a crock?

Just letting you know that i'm giving a version of my keynote Green to Gold talk at a free webinar being held by WebEx.

See www.webex.com/go/workgreen30 for more details and to sign up.

Andrew

I wrote a few weeks ago about Virgin Airline’s biofuel test flight. While it was a bit of a publicity stunt, it was also a good thing – we need experimentation to find ways to reduce carbon emissions in all industries. But another news item HuffPo linked to this week brought my attention back to the airline industry. Apparently, the EU is saying that US airlines will need to pay for carbon emissions, or risk losing flight slots in and out of Europe.

For me, this story is about risk, which is a big part of the equation in green business strategy. Reducing risk is a solid strategy for creating value in your business, and in the green realm, it used to be mainly about avoiding regulations. Or about avoiding brand-killing incidents like the discovery of something dangerous in your products (see Mattel last year with lead in its toys). But green-related risk is getting much broader and more challenging to manage. The EU’s position, for example, creates market access risk for airlines that don’t play the game and either manage or pay for their carbon sins.

But many industries face bigger risks from the changing attitudes of consumers and other stakeholders. To stick with airlines for the moment…just a few years ago, nobody knew what a carbon footprint was, and now we hear statistics all the time about the footprint of everything we do, especially travel. There’s even data on how much airlines contribute to total global emissions (2-3%). So the pressure is rising. Customers may develop a distaste for flying in general given its high environmental toll. As I mentioned in my last post, business customers now have another option to help their companies reduce travel emissions and keep their green promises: high-quality teleconferencing.

This customer-driven risk may not threaten airlines too badly, but customer tastes and public perceptions are fickle and in other areas they can turn against a industry or product quickly. Take the somewhat strange trip of attitudes toward bottled water, which has turned south in the last year. Is bottled water a smart use of resources? Of course not; tap water is pretty good so why wrap it in plastic? But is an extra bottle here and there the worst environmental offender in our lives? Not likely, especially compared to what we drive to the store to get the bottles in the first place. I don’t know if bottled water sales are slowing – it may be too early to tell – but the focus hasn’t been easy for companies like Coke, Pepsi, and Nestle.

Fast Company ran an excellent analysis of the pros and cons of the bottled water business. The article concluded with one important insight: "Bottled water is not a sin, but it is a choice." We can’t always see it coming, but consumers and business customers will make choices that avoid products with perceived environmental problems. When business customers make a new ‘choice’ it can move much faster than customer attitudes – just watch what’s happening to plastic bags, with bans in place in some retail environments…and now cities and countries around the world are eliminating the bags as well.

So on top of customer choice, businesses face new risks through market forces and government mandates that make the EU carbon tax look quaint. Most people don’t realize that the last energy bill passed by the U.S. Congress basically banned regular, incandescent light bulbs. In the coverage of that bill, the press focused mainly on the rise in automobile fuel efficiency standards (to a 35 mpg average by 2020, which seems to me like a no-brainer). But the real story was the light bulbs.

The bill set new standards for energy efficiency that regular bulbs won’t be able to meet (hello, compact fluorescents). It’s really an astonishing law when you think about it – we’re banning something that isn’t inherently unsafe. I can’t think of another example like that. And to add to it, we’re replacing current bulbs with products that are less save in your home – CFL’s have mercury in them. Don’t get me wrong: the tradeoff is worth it for now – as a society we’d rather deal with a pile of mercury bulbs that we’re not sure what to do with than climate change. Of course this kind of mandate creates opportunity for anyone who can innovate and avoid the problems associated with either kind of bulb. LED lights anyone?

If you make incandescent bulbs, or plastic shopping bags, you’re facing the death of your business. I bet some manufacturers wish they had something as “easy” to deal with as an EU carbon tax. This kind of risk – a market being redefined out from under you – is a bit scary. The risk is complete irrelevance. But companies that don’t keep an eye on all these forces, from shifts in customer attitudes to wide-reaching laws and mandates, will disappear. The smart ones will innovate and profit in a newly defined market.

On Sunday, Virgin Airlines flew a jumbo jet from London to Amsterdam powered in part by coconuts (“a biofuel mixture of coconut and babassu oil” to be more precise). Some would say the applicable part of that sentence is “nuts.” Is this another wacky Richard Branson moment, or something legitimate and important? Or, as is all things Branson, maybe it’s both?

It’s easy to throw stones at Virgin’s attempt and call it a publicity stunt. But it’s pretty hard to chalk it up entirely to PR when Branson has pledged $3 billion, or all expected profits from his travel divisions, to battle climate change. But remember, this is Branson – PR stunts are his bread and butter, and they’re a legitimate form of marketing if you have something to say. In the environmental realm, it’s pretty important that what you say is real and credible though. So let me throw an important pebble before moving on to some positive thoughts on what Branson is up to.

The main problem is biofuels as a whole. I have no energy crystal ball – I have no idea which energy technologies will win. Nobody else really does either. But studies are showing that there are some real problems with biofuels when they’re created in most of the ways we currently have. Science magazine just reported on a very important study of the greenhouse gas impact of biofuels (see abstract here). In short, corn ethanol is just nutty (I’m paraphrasing the scientists a bit). It creates double the greenhouse gases of fuel since we have to clear land for the additional crops, and thus release carbon stored in the trees. I’d also add that burning our food when we’re heading toward 9 billion hungry mouths doesn’t seem that smart. Even fast-growing switchgrass, which President Bush has praised, apparently increases emissions 20%. So a shift to new kinds of fuels isn’t going to be easy. And it’s very unlikely that as Branson says, "This breakthrough will help Virgin Atlantic to fly its planes using clean fuel sooner than expected.”

But now for the praise and the good stuff. First, from an environmental strategy standpoint what Branson is doing makes sense. As every company should, Virgin is looking at its own (substantial) direct environmental “footprint.” Planes burn a lot of fuel. Going green in that business will be hard – since you can’t put a solar panel on a plane, there aren’t that many options.

So, second, we need experimentation. While money is being poured into working on all kinds of biofuels, we need parallel experimentation on what to do with that fuel. Demonstrating potential demand for new fuels will help speed the investment and development of new technologies. Now, we may discover that all biofuels don’t work from a life-cycle perspective, but until we know that for sure, trying out different combinations of fuels and vehicles is not a bad idea. As Branson put it, the flight would provide "crucial knowledge that we can use to dramatically reduce our carbon footprint.” Again, he’s probably ahead of himself a bit, but generating knowledge is a pretty good goal at this point.

Third, Branson is pushing the boundaries in other ways. Of course his biofuels pursuit may be a blind alley. So it’s good that he’s taken some other ground-breaking steps (in addition to that very unusual pledge of profits). Look at the fairly fun announcement he made about a $25 million award (my previous blog here) for anyone who can take carbon out of the atmosphere (harking back to the prize set in the 1700s for finding a way to measure longitude — a great book on that story here).

When you look at the contest Branson started, at first it’s crazy, but then has some strong logic to it (much like many of his seemingly wild ideas that create giant new businesses). Since directly reducing the emissions will be hard, and a company called Virgin Air can’t go around promoting alternatives for having meetings – although don’t bet against a Virgin Teleconference business to do just that – then why not do something about the impact of the planes. Planting trees is nice, but a technology that pulls carbon out of the air could be a big business. I can’t say whether it’s feasible, but why not look into it?

Of course the greenest answer is not to fly at all, but that isn’t going to happen anytime soon (I’ll look at this in a follow-up post). But back to Branson. Given (a) how much innovation there may be to avoid flying, (b) the rising cost of energy that will drive some slow down in growth of flying, and (c) the responsibility Branson clearly feels for keeping his business and the planet healthy, isn’t a good thing that he’s trying to find ways to reduce the impact from flying?

Shouldn’t somebody?

NAVL is an old-style business, 75 years old this year. But I heard some new talk from one member who’s been sprinting down the Green to Gold path. John Prager runs Prager Moving in Naperville, IL – 35 employees, one big warehouse, and 10 trucks or so. John has attacked all aspects of his business and used the green lens to create value. Generators keep the trucks warm so movers don’t idle the engines – which they may do for 8 hours in front of your house to make sure the truck starts again. The warehouse has new, lower-energy lighting. Prager offsets 25% of its energy with wind power from Community Energy, making it one of the largest privately-owned renewable energy buyers in Illinois – all at a cost of $250 per month.

John knows these actions are the right things to do and they have reduced the company’s footprint. But John talks passionately about the many other benefits: reduced costs, happier employees, and higher revenues and brand value – Prager has something to market and differentiate itself on in a commodity world (price and quality in moving are hard to compete on).

But here’s the interesting part: John named his program “Moving 2 Green” so he had a marketing hook. Then some colleagues in his NAVL affiliation asked to “join” the program. He didn’t realize he had a program to join. So John said, Sure, but you have to meet a set of criteria. He put together a short list of actions they had to agree to and he’d give them the “official” seal of approval. Cost to colleagues: nothing. But each company needs to agree to steer business to other “Moving 2 Green” movers – it’s a positive network effect.

I love this kind of story. No matter the size, companies discover that green is just better business. John’s colleagues will want to follow, will want help doing it, and then will want credit for it in the marketplace. They’ll want a legitimate “label” on their green actions (by the way, check out www.ecolabelling.org, co-founded by a friend of mine, Anastasia O’Rouke, for an unbelievable list of all the labels out there).

I warned John that soon he may not be moving people – he’ll be spending his life putting his green seal on his colleagues’ operations.

PR firm Hill & Knowlton talked to MBA students globally and asked them what factors would influence career and job choice. They ranked the factors by % that said it was "extremely" or "very" important. Here's the list from the study:

Career opportunities.......................................95
Corporate culture/working environment.............86
Compensation and benefits package................85
Employee satisfaction....................................84
Quality of products and services......................75
Financial performance/growth potential.............73
Corporate governance and ethics.....................58
Social responsibility/community involvement.....49
Brand and marketing message........................48
Environmental/green policy..............................34

BusinessWeek looked at this and declared "Green Isn't Gold for MBAs" and pointed out that green stuff is at the bottom. Now, color me optimistic, but I think these numbers -- 49% on CSR and 34% on green -- are actually pretty high. Of course career opportunities and money are going to be nearly universal; it's like asking consumers about price and quality versus other considerations -- of course they come first. I would expect that very few MBAs would pick on environmental considerations alone.

But I'm amazed that one-third or more of these MBAs consider green as important as those other factors (remember, this is 'extremely' or 'very' important). And where would those numbers have been 5 years ago? What's the trajectory on this?

What was interesting, and BusinessWeek does get to this after its sensational headline, was what happened when the questions got more specific. Two-thirds won't work for tobacco and half don't want to work for energy or autos -- those are just the two biggest sectors in the world. Finally, to cap it off, 1 in 5 American MBAs -- and 42% and 38% in EU and Asia respectively -- would be inclined not to take an "attractive" job offer from a company with a poor environmental reputation.

If you're recruiting for top talent, and you're not tackling green issues, wouldn't it worry you that 20-40% of your pool of applicants may have no interest in you?

And the numbers may be rising as you look at even younger cohorts. Monster.com did a survey of undergrads recently and found that 92% wanted to work for a green company. They were so impressed by this finding, they launched a green careers website. The recruiting giants are convinced even if BusinessWeek isn't.

The choice was interesting to me personally because I had just gone to Russia for the first time to speak to execs in Moscow about greening. At a meeting of industrialists held by the International Chamber of Commerce Russia, a few Westerners presented some perspectives on climate change (Sir Nicholas Stern), the greening of business (me), NGOs and their role (Peter Seligmann, founder of Conservation International), and Russia’s place in the world (James Wolfensohn, former head of the World Bank – Jim and his son Adam were kind enough to invite me along). As you might guess, I was wowed by the company I was in.

There were some culturally fascinating moments – like when a Russian environmental minister basically asked why they should listen to Americans since the U.S. is the biggest emitter (a fair point no doubt). Or the moment where discussion turned to how to build a culture of environmental awareness and get employees – or as they call them in an amazing throwback, “workers” – involved. Someone actually pointed to the works of Lenin on how to deal with workers.

Why do we care about Russia? Well, depending on how you measure it, it’s the 3rd (or top 5) emitter of GHGs. Mr. Wolfensohn cited some remarkable statistics. RAO UES, the utility that produces 70% of the country’s electricity is responsible for 2% of all emissions globally. And one “town” with power generation and smelters apparently has emissions equal to France. Gulp.

My overall impression was one of a country and industries just coming to the green topic. That’s both terrifying and exciting – imagine the opportunity to adopt what the 3M’s, DuPont’s, Toyota’s, and other eco-efficiency mavens of the world have done. But can Russia apply the same lessons? Are the same structures in place that can get all the ‘workers’ on board? Can you follow the same Green to Gold logic and path? It’s unlikely, but frankly, I don’t really know – you need real knowledge of a culture to make that kind of assessment.

The “how” may vary greatly in different cultures, but I suspect the “why” is pretty consistent. The natural world pressures component of the Green Wave is not going away. And going green will be better for business and will allow you to compete. In this case, we made the argument to them was that a country that wants to operate on the world business stage – one that wants to be a world supplier – will need to green its operations.

A final thought from Peter Seligmann really stuck with me. In response to the legitimate complaint that we were representing the worst offenders, he said that, yes, the U.S. doesn’t really have a leg to stand on (and in fact our administration was battling global action in the Bali negotiations while we were in Moscow). The Chinese couldn’t really lead either since they are trying to manage growth and prosperity. So, he said, why not Russia? Why shouldn’t you take the lead? It’s a good call to action for anyone really. And with all due respect to the fast follower business model, isn’t leading a lot more fun?

But 2007 was just the beginning. It was not a fad – or a bad dream for some – but a fundamental shift in how we all do business. Why? Well the Green Wave was a big part of it: the two big forces of the natural world – real resource constraints like water shortages and climate change – and the rising pressure from stakeholders got stronger. But what was the strongest reason to belive it's not a fad (and one that became much clearer in 2007 )? In short, green business is better business – companies are slashing costs, driving new revenues, reducing risk, and enhancing brand value. Why go back if your business is better?

But the tipping point year is over now and the game is on. So what environmentally-driven challenges and questions will your business face in 2008 and how will you handle them?
I could pick many trends (I believe that most aspects of the Green Wave are getting stronger and still changing fast, even in tougher economic times), but I’ll highlight just a few of the forces that will grow stronger in '08 and the coming years.

The “greening of the supply chain” grew legs this past year with Wal-Mart adding its substantial weight to a movement that had been gaining steam for years. The leviathan started asking suppliers to redesign packaging and reduce fossil fuel use, and even demanding more information on exactly how much energy a product used in its creation, from procurement to manufacturing to distribution. The B2B greening pressure means every company will need to track much more data on its operations. This is where we’re headed: a world where every product will carry information with it about how it was made – the energy, water, resource use – who made it and where, how much they were paid, and on and on.

Clearly this won’t all happen in ’08, but it has already begun in earnest. The pressure for more data is part of a larger movement toward transparency in all we do. Dole now puts a sticker on its organic bananas with a farm number on it. Go to Dole’s website and pick the farm number and watch as Google Earth zooms you to a satellite view of the farm itself. This is a fun use of transparency.

Other stakeholders are using the same tools for more critical uses, to expose much more information about where your products, or your energy, come from. Look at Appalachian Voices, a small but very smart NGO that works to combat mountain-top removal mining practices. Put in your zipcode at their site, and see a very clear picture of the mountains that were cut down to power your life. I spoke to Mary Ann Hitt, the director of this group, and for good reason, companies should be nervous about what she and other innovative NGO leaders will do with new technologies. Google is enamored with this kind of interesting use of their tools and has built Appalachian Voices' data into the popular Google Earth program. Every version includes an overlay of all the mountains destroyed anywhere (along with some other overlays under the “Global Awareness” check-box including WWF maps, biodiversity hotspots, etc).

Are you ready for this level of exposure and expectation of openness?

So next December, when many of your resolutions have fallen by the wayside and you’re not as organized or as on-time as you hoped (I'm shooting to fully adopt the Getting Things Done workflow approach and we'll see how it goes...), will you be able to say that you made your business better? That your company is on a more profitable path using the green lens? Will you have an action plan to stay ahead of the curve on this critical business issue?

Good luck and Happy (Green) New Year!

First, full disclosure: This story is about Tennant, a quiet public company that makes cleaning equipment, and they hired me to speak. But I can say that the industry gave Tennant the Innovation Award at this conference– so it wasn’t just me. I also checked this out with some of their test customers, so I’m really just reporting what I heard and saw.

So, here’s the big innovation: water. Tennant just launched a floor cleaning machine called Echo that uses no chemicals at all. The machine oxygenates tap water to split it into an acid and base (alkaline) that are safe to touch, then it sprays the two streams on the floor. In 45 seconds, the two polarized water streams mix and become plain water again. But in the process, the mixture grabs all the dirt off the ground. Sounds too good to be true, but it seems to work. Test customers included the Minneapolis Target Center (where the Minnesota Timberwolves play) and Unicco, a building contractor that services many malls in the Northeast.

I talked to Jay Souza from Unicco, which manages the janitorial services for the malls, and he said Echo actually cleans better than a chemical-driven machine. The floor also dries faster. Most importantly, there is absolutely no safety issue. The thing takes tap water so there’s no handling of toxic chemicals and no safety concerns.

The catch? It costs about $1,000 more (they’re $5,000 machines and believe it or not, there’s a $5B market for these things). The payback period from not having to buy chemicals is in the range of 1-2 years. When I talked to the purchasing guy from Unicco, Greg Zifcak, he said he couldn’t be happier to pay more to avoid all the safety concerns – the short-ish payback was not even that vital. The other small catch: it doesn’t clean every kind of surface or all kinds of dirt (oil-based things like brake fluid are created to resist water). But I got the impression that it cleans the same floors as regular machines. So, there will still be a need for chemicals for many uses…for now. But this innovation covers an awful lot of surfaces out there.

How did this all happen? The CEO, Chris Killingstad, arrived on the scene of this quiet 138-year-old company a few years back. He told everyone that they would no longer be a “non-residential service something, something” (I can’t even remember what their mantra was it was so nondescript). Now, he said, we’ll be an “environmental cleaning solutions company.” Ta-da. That created the mindset for R&D to run free. Borrowing the idea for the technology from other industries and countries (Japan apparently uses these ionized streams for things like cleaning wounds), came up with the idea to use the recombination step as a cleaning process, and went from idea in January 2006 to launch in less than two years.

This kind of innovation is sort of head-slapping in its obviousness – in retrospect. And enormously valuable to the company that can hit on it first.

World, meet the Prius of floor cleaning.

BusinessWeek’s cover this week, “Little Green Lies,” certainly tries to be incendiary. The subhead: “The sweet notion that making a company environmentally friendly can be…profitable is going up in smoke.” But dig in and the reality of the article is equal parts insightful and inane/obvious (a bit more of the latter perhaps). And it doesn't actually say anything all that different than green business writers/thinkers have been saying. If one of the main messages is that it’s not so easy to go green, I can only say, no kidding.

And in a funny turn, BusinessWeek managed the feat of starting the cover parade in January and taking just 9 months to totally contradict itself. But let’s look at a couple of the specific complaints.

First we have the repeated stories of eco-champion Auden Schendler at Aspen Skiing failing to get his management to green light green expenditures. The story seems to be that the ROI was not always enough. On this one, I couldn’t agree more…in part. Yes, any investment in a company competes for cash with all other options. And, yes, looking at pure ROI, some energy efficiency investments won’t look great (they may take 5-10 years or more). But as a reader of Green to Gold knows, I don’t believe that traditional cost/benefit analysis is doing a very good job. It doesn’t take into account intangibles at all.

What’s the value of reducing risk of energy spikes? (By the way, how do some of the ROI calculations from not that long ago when oil was $40/barrel look now?). What’s the marketing value of walking the talk? How will employees feel?

The other point the article brings out is that it’s tough to convince people and move a culture. Not everyone buys it – the story of one manager not believing the high ROI for a project is, sadly, not surprising. This is partly a legacy of green guys in a company not getting business respect. So, again, the idea that this is all hard is not shocking.

But a core criticism in the article – the attack on Renewable Energy Credits (RECs) as a way for companies to offset emissions – is a deeper and much more important question. It’s incredibly complicated how or if RECs create real demand and generate renewable energy. Lowering the costs for wind generators (by paying them the additional value of the REC) should in theory drive growth (Micro Econ 101). But the article is fairly devastating on the scale of the REC vs. the cost of generation. One argument could be that the market for RECs has to grow much more so that the price rises (Micro Econ 101 supply and demand). That would potentially expand production. But the point that a REC today doesn't exactly mean less fossil fuel today is well taken.

But I focus on another lesson here: RECs and all offsets should be a last resort (no skiing pun intended). First, cut emissions through eco-efficiency. Second, generate renewable energy onsite. Then seek the highest quality offsets.

In the end, this article is a sign that we’re evolving. The author may not realize it, but the piece is telling companies to look at the full value chain environmental impact (not just measure emissions at owned facilities, a mistake Nike makes, according to the author) and measure emissions completely before making claims. I couldn’t agree more.

If I’ve learned a couple things (or strengthened some assumptions) in the year since Green to Gold came out it’s this: we’re just getting started, companies have a long way to go, and it’s not easy. I started reading this article thinking it was so odd as a juxtaposition with the Wal-Mart meeting the other day that really was the starter’s pistol on this movement: strange, I figured, that it’s getting started in earnest right when BusinessWeek declares it over. But the reality is that this article doesn’t match the aggressive title and sub-title – the content is actually a sign that all of this is for real. Only fundamental shifts in how business works cause this kind of scrutiny and warrant tough questions.

This piece is actually making the case for a main arm of the Green to Gold story: know your footprint, do things that actually reduce yours or your customer’s, and then take credit for it. As the Aspen Skiing Company shows, getting frustrated with lack of progress – as Schendler so rightfully does – and getting some of those steps reversed, is a recipe for trouble.

We’re at an odd junction in the greening of business. Millions of business people are just now coming to the table and seeking some easy wins. They’re moving incrementally, or trying to skip steps entirely. At the same time, some “old-timers” who have been working hard for years are getting frustrated at the lack of speed. It's like they're finally not alone in the wilderness and they want to start running. The problem is that everyone else is just starting their training for the race. Like Schendler, the leaders are getting impatient and pushing hard. I’m not sure which force will win, but it’s going to be an interesting battle.

First, Scott’s opening comments confirmed everything I’ve been thinking/hoping. He answered the question “Is this a fad?” definitively. He pointed out that Wal-Mart is saving money, driving profitability, involving employees, and improving reputation “more than we dreamed.” As he said, sustainability will mean better products helping customers create a better life. The message was “we’re committed.” It’s not a fad, Scott said, and not a marketing ploy, but a “remarkable business opportunity.” (For a longer excerpt of Scott's comments and another perspective, see Joel Makower's take on the day here.)

So it was almost a regular, everyday operational meeting (with the unusual aspect being all CEOs in a room of course). Wal-Mart was just asking suppliers to innovate and provide products to help it go green – the company wants 100 products like the CFL light bulbs it has sold 100 million of. No big fancy targets, just hard work. It struck me that this movement is really happening now.

Lest this blog turn into an all Wal-Mart discussion (which is almost hard to avoid given how much of a driving force they are right now), let me comment on another aspect of the meeting that was really fascinating to me. The day also included a medium-sized trade show of sorts – booths set up by all the organizations that Wal-Mart thought could help its suppliers go green. It was a mix of mainly NGOs and consulting firms for the most part (full list here). The latter group is exploding, including consulting arms from Interface and Wal-Mart itself. This may be a bit insular, but this certainly was interesting to me since I do consulting in this field, often with partner DOMANI.

The mad dash of companies trying to come to the aid of the Fortune 1000 in their new green quest reminds me of any gold rush throughout history. The consultants are now competing to offer picks and shovels for this new green age. And no matter how many there are, who knows if it will be enough to satisfy the growing demand.

There’s been a lot going on in the green realm. The world’s biggest economies are meeting this week to possibly, maybe, at some point in the future think about reducing emissions. But, luckily for all of us, at the same time, Wal-Mart continued barreling forward and announced that its suppliers would have to rate their energy use. I’ve been waiting for this one – the greening of the supply chain has ratcheted up a big notch. Now it’s not just compliance, but actual data on your footprint. Better get out the calculators. Next up, I believe, is more shelf space for those who have the lowest footprints.

As the always pointed Thomas Friedman said about this same juxtaposition this week, the world leaders are together for more of a climate photo op than a climate conference. But all of this leads me to my fun story of the month.

I was speaking at a meeting of the National Stone, Sand, and Gravel Association – which was more interesting than it sounds. These are the guys that dig big holes and provide the stuff that, among other things, ends up in roads. I heard a great story of the Wal-Mart effect, which shows just how far back in the chain the ripples are extending.

The chairman of the NSSGA runs a business digging out materials for construction, but has had another, creative and profitable side business – creating commercial space in those holes and renting or selling it. Now, he tells me, his firm is working with Kraft Foods to develop and open an underground food storage facility. How is this green, you ask? Well, as proponents of geothermal energy know, the temperature underground is basically constant and in the 56 degree range. So keeping refrigerated products cool is a great deal cheaper there than above ground. Kraft will save significant energy in this facility. One of the main reasons they’re doing it is because of Wal-Mart’s pressure up the supply chain. And the bottom line for our hole-digging hero is he's driving new, green-themed revenues.

As you might imagine, I love this kind of Green to Gold story. It’s at least unexpected, and possibly revolutionary. It’s creating green value up and down the value chain. The ripples are moving fast these days.

I had an interesting conversation with James Murdoch, CEO of BskyB, the largest media company in the UK (and, oh yeah, son of Rupert). Under James’ leadership, BskyB has become very interested in green, declaring that it will go climate neutral, and making many operational and product changes such as redesigning cable boxes to use 50% less energy. But one of the first things he said to me was that the company's green work has made recruiting easier.

Later, Ray Anderson put it powerfully: “In my 51 years in business, I’ve never seen an issue galvanize people in a company like sustainability.”

I’m not surprised at statements like this anymore. Throughout my research for Green to Gold, and in many conversations since then, I've heard the same. Companies discover that the best audience for their CSR reports is actually their own employees, who are generally thrilled to find out what their companies are doing right. As a BP exec told me, the green stuff comes up in recruiting and training meetings all the time now.

Of course the pursuit of sustainability has also driven the work RMI employees and Amory Lovins. While it’s more obvious to see this drive at RMI than at a cable company, it was still inspiring. It also helps explains what has kept Amory working so hard for 30+ years while he waited for the world to catch up to his thinking. Only passion can keep you going for decades. Amory's speech at the gala was incredible -- a vision of what a the future could look like.

This is the core issue: sustainability, once you get past the gloom and doom warnings about environmental issues, is fundamentally an optimistic pursuit – a vision of a healthier, stronger world for all.

Imagine what that kind of optimism can do for your employees and your company.

It’s far more likely Mr. Schechter is living in Wonderland than Adam Werbach. I wish the world were as black and white as he makes it out to be, but it’s much more complicated than that. Equating big business, and Wal-Mart, with evil – and labeling anyone who chooses to try and make the world’s largest company more socially responsible as bad news – is too easy and incredibly misguided. Does Wal-Mart have some serious issues? Certainly. The company has big problems on the social side of the sustainability ledger, and its core business model, dependent entirely on low prices, is not sustainable for people or planet (an opinion I've shared with some of Wal-Mart's management). But just throwing up our hands and refusing to work with big business is not just illogical, it actually dooms us.

What’s the alternative here? Should we only buy from and work for and with sustainable companies? Well, that would be nice, and I pray that in the future, the options are there, but for now, that would leave us with exactly zero companies. I can assure you after years of research for my book Green to Gold, there’s no such thing as a sustainable company yet. Some are on their way, like Interface, Patagonia, and IKEA. But we can’t afford to wait for the big companies doing business the old way to just wither and die. We must change the way the world produces goods, eats, shops, works, consumes, and lives…and we’ll only get there in partnership with some of the biggest organizations out there (in part by making the very defendable case that it's good for business to be green), and with some fundamental shifts in our market economy (such as...the prices of goods need to reflect their real impact on the world -- $20/gallon gas anyone?).

Companies are, like it or not, the most effective means we have for making things to wear, eat, and live with and matching them with people’s needs (how much we consume is a big part of the discussion of course, but we all have some footprint no matter how green our lifestyle). Like it or not, when the history of green business is written (which I hope will come in the form of a digital or low-impact book available to the billions of people living a high-quality life and not scratched on a few palm fronds by the few remaining inhabitants of a climate-change flooded Waterworld), that history will be in large part about Wal-Mart. The company’s environmental actions are very real – just ask the thousands of suppliers, large and small that have been “asked” to reduce packaging, use less fossil fuel, and change the way they make things.

Environmentalists (and I wear both hats -- business and environment -- comfortably) have to support the good things happening, even if they are coming from a seemingly unlikely place. The biggest companies in the world are taking environmental issues seriously, and the largest environmental NGOs are all working with industry closely. These relationships are a good thing. If we don’t change the big guys, we won’t make it.

But more interesting than the sustainability star wattage was the in-depth conversation, led by master of ceremonies, famed columnist, author, and thinker, Thomas Friedman, who gave one of the best talks I've ever seen about the green imperative, roughly titled “green is the new red, white, & blue" (his next book). My favorite quote: “It’s not about the whales anymore…every time you look in the mirror, you’re looking at an endangered species.”

Anyway, I’ll probably do a few posts on some themes and interesting conversations I had or heard. First up, the key question of hurdles to going green. Friedman continually asked the basic question, If this is all so great and being more efficient makes so much sense, why doesn’t it happen more? This is one of the undercurrent themes of Green to Gold of course – the fact that there are real hurdles.

There was some good discussion on this core question. Some great quotes from Ray Anderson. “Why aren’t companies doing more? I’ll give you two words: Milton Friedman.” Ray pointed out that Friedman’s "the business of business is business" thesis is still driving a lot of resistance to a broader corporate social agenda. “But,” Ray continued, “I don’t know a single CEO who will stand in front of his maker and talk about shareholder value or market share.”

Dean Kamen added that it’s not just about the overwhelming logic of sustainability. “Don’t make the irrational assumption that people are rational…we don’t make the right decisions and we all make short-term decisions to give us what we want.”

These are great perspectives, but clearly the problem goes beyond these important issues. It’s not just a philosophical Friedman-esque problem (although that’s powerful), and it’s not only about short-term thinking (which is rampant). Companies face real hurdles and there are real trade-offs. The “Middle-Management Squeeze” from Green to Gold is a critical problem. For managers charged with really executing on corporate strategy, green goals often conflict, at least over the short-term, with other goals like throughput, cost, and quality. Managers face tight resources – both human and financial capital – and have to make tough choices. Yes, taking into account longer term considerations helps break this decision barrier, but it’s a real challenge. On top of the organizational challenges, we all face the problem of unintended consequences. Thinking about full value chain impacts is tough, and reducing impact in one way in one part of the chain can cause rebound effects elsewhere.

None of this is easy, but I will say this: the brains in the room at the RMI gala certainly have a shot at fixing our collective problems if anyone does.