Positive Profits for a Green Future

The world is facing a dirty crisis, pollution is on the rise; the factor that has the

most impact on this crisis are the businesses that are creating the pollution. Although becoming an eco-friendly business can be seen as expensive, the increase in profits can balance the expenses. If the change is made now, businesses can expect to see a significant increase in profits and a positive impact on a green future.

Thankfully, over the past few years, businesses have taken the initiative to control the coming issues of pollution. The Toyota Motor Company, an auto manufacturer most famous for creating some of the world’s most eco-friendly cars

has outlined how companies can increase production in a green way called the Lean-Green Strategy. Researchers in “Going Green, Going Clean: Lean-Green Sustainability Strategy and Firm Growth” mention that the rise in global industrial economies has increased negative environmental impacts. In addition to the Lean-Green Strategy, Toyota also adopted the Japanese concept of kaizen.

In 1994, John Elkington created the Triple Bottom Line, a framework of three main ideas focusing around business and the environment. Those three ideas are: people: how businesses socially interact with the world, profit: how businesses interact with the economy and planet: how businesses interact with the environment. The Triple Bottom Line at its core essentially demonstrates how businesses should not just focus on the money and profit, but also their customers and the environment because of the large impact they have on these factors.

Businesses who are looking to go green are mainly looking to increase their level of eco-efficiency, maximizing their production of products while increasing profits with the byproduct of decreasing their negative environmental impact and production of pollution. It is through following the guidelines of the Triple Bottom Line that businesses can become eco-efficient; satisfying human needs, having competitively priced goods and services and reducing environmental impacts.

The Minnesota Mining & Manufacturing Company (3M), a conglomerate company that produces consumer and industrial products initiated a program called 3P, pollution prevention pays, in 1975. The 3P project helped 3M with their goal of eliminating pollution from the source and has created about $750 million in first-year savings in two decades. The increase in profit aside, the 3P project was able to prevent over two hundred thousand tons of air pollutants, thirty thousand tons of water pollutants and nearly four billion gallons of wastewater (Eco-Efficiency: The Business Link to Sustainable Development).

Helping businesses who are environmentally friendly or who are trying to be environmentally friendly through buying their products can make a great difference. Not only will the customer reap the benefits from an eco-friendly product/business but the environment can too. Strategies and practices such as the Triple Bottom Line and the Lean-Green Strategy have been created to help businesses in need and if they follow these practices, positive profits are in the green future they create.