"Now green means business ", a review on the article published in "Newsweek " (August 2, 2008)

Résumé du document

Nowadays, the largest companies in the world are getting more and more involved in environmental concerns. Firms, which in the past seemed not to be aware of the environmental care, are really getting serious about sustainability. Even major companies such as Wal-Mart or Google have made environmental care a significant item of their strategy. Is that just a trend? Is this commitment an international marketing strategy? Have firms finally become aware of this issue? More than an advertising trend, green business is actually now an economical necessity for companies.

Extraits

[...] That means it is often more cost effective for those companies to adapt their supply chains to the most stringent market rather than attempt to tailor production to each specific market. That is why global corporations have moved significantly faster than the U.S. government in the direction of sustainability. In short, environmental concerns have suddenly emerged as a dominant driver of global corporations, marrying an old impulse to be good stewards of the planet with an equally ancient desire to make money. [...]

[...] Commentary Nowadays, the largest companies in the world are getting more and more involved in environmental concern. Firms, which in the past seemed not to be aware of the environmental care, are really getting serious about sustainability, indeed, even major companies as Wal-Mart or Google have made of environmental care a significant item of their strategy. Is that just a trend? Is this commitment an international marketing strategy? Have firms finally became aware of this issue? More than an advertising trend, green business is actually now an economical necessity for companies. [...]

[...] An environmentally friendly behavior is the perfect answer for the constraint to reduce costs. More over, most of the large conglomerates work in countries where there are government regulations about carbon emissions. To make profit, these costs have to be reduced too. Nowadays, all studies put the spotlight on the fact that the more a company is ecologically aware, the more it is successful. Indeed, this type of investment is more than ever smart and appropriate, economically and strategically. In business, profit is no longer so much distant from ethics. [...]

[...] "Now green means business", article publié dans "Newsweek" août 2008) For any company with a supply chain, if they want to continue being profitable, they have to reduce their carbon footprint. Environmental concern is suddenly all the rage, all around the world. Unless you've been buried in a coal mine for the past year, you've been inundated with articles about this hot new trend. In early July, China lifted gasoline subsidies, in part to force consumers and businesses to confront the costs of using more of that ever-more costly resource. [...]

[...] Meanwhile, the price of oil has risen to $130 a barrel, and the prices of raw materials such as copper, steel, cement, paper and any sort of energy have gone up three, four, five or more times in the past two years. While raw materials are usually less than 15 percent of overall expenses, those figures have been growing lately. CEOs and CFOs are feeling a new urgency to reduce costs, and energy conservation strategies have suddenly been transformed into an answer. Consider Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott, who has quickly turned his controversial retailer into a poster child for environmentally aware business. [...]