Green - A business model

Green is in every aspect of our life. We all are talking about green today more than ever in the past. Amazingly even doctors talk about including green foods in your diet for a healthy life. Talk to automakers, they talk about future generation green cars. Talk to food industrialist, they talk about benefits of organic food. Talk to IT or ITC leaders, they talk about green computing or green ITC. Today you open a news paper, magazine or switch on a news channel, listen to an interview you get to see or listen to this topic. Well, is it become an issue of sentiment or a concern or a business model to market your products? I think it’s a bit of all. Please bear to read my post in detail and then judge me but don’t be very harsh in judging me :)


Every one knows the reason behind global warming. And the reasons in brief are,

- Natural causes
- Deforestation

- Excess GHG emission.

Ok, what exactly green refer to? I think its better I clarify what green means to different people.

In the United States of America, green is a slang term for money, among other things.

Green has broad and sometimes contradictory meanings. In some cultures, green symbolizes hope and growth, while in others; it is associated with death, sickness, envy, or the devil. The most common associations, however, are found in its ties to nature. For example, Islam venerates the color, as it expects paradise to be full of lush greenery. Green is also associated with regeneration, fertility and rebirth for its connections to nature. Recent political groups have taken on the color as symbol of environmental protection and social justice, and consider themselves part of the Green movement, some naming themselves Green parties. This has led to similar campaigns in advertising, as companies have sold green, or environmentally friendly, products.

Many environmentalists, leaders, scientists are fearing that with the current rate of increase in population, deforestation, excess and toxic GHG emissions there are lot of risks to this earth and in a whole to this mankind. Well, I say before we experience the threat from mother earth half of our population will be reduced due to shortage in food, wars between countries, complicated diseases etc. Consider nothing of such issues like food, war, disease will happen and we experience the difficult issue of global warming alone.

There have been at least five major ice ages in the Earth's past. Outside these ages, the Earth seems to have been ice-free even in high latitudes.

Rocks from the earliest well established ice age, called the Huronian, formed around 2.4 to 2.1 Ga (billion) years ago during the early Proterozoic Eon.

The next well-documented ice age, and probably the most severe of the last billion years, occurred from 850 to 630 million years ago.

A minor ice age, the Andean-Saharan, occurred from 460 to 430 million years ago, during the Late Ordovician and the Silurian period.

There were extensive polar ice caps at intervals from 350 to 260 million years ago in South Africa during the Carboniferous and early Permian Periods, associated with the Karoo Ice Age.

The Karoo Ice Age occurred from 360 to 260 million years ago.

My question is, well before mankind exists and even after man kind came in to picture we had ice age. That time there was no industrialization or no excess GHG emission then how come we seen changes in ice age?

Major reasons quoted are,

atmospheric composition (the concentrations of carbon dioxide, methane); changes in the Earth's orbit around the Sun known as Milankovitch cycles (and possibly the Sun's orbit around the galaxy); the motion of tectonic plates resulting in changes in the relative location and amount of continental and oceanic crust on the Earth's surface, which affect wind and ocean currents; variations in solar output; the orbital dynamics of the Earth-Moon system; and the impact of relatively large meteorites, and volcanism including eruptions of super volcanoes.

Reasons quoted gives a sense that natural causes were the major ones in the process of shift in the global warming. Then why should we worry much about other reasons?

Many intellectuals say, with all these man made excess GHG emissions, deforestation is resulting in accelerating the process of global warming. Makes sense and makes me believe this. Then how badly these reasons contribute to global warming?

Climategate controversy – twisted data from the researchers http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/20/AR2009112004093.html,  Even me this might give us the fair idea on this. You don’t believe so??? Many agencies, many researchers have contributed lot on this topic to confuse Being a sensible human being we should be listening to good people andus? ensure we follow each step to protect ourselves from horrifying things that can occur. We have seen many deadly tsunami, earth quakes, climate shift, acid rain etc causing the death. So it’s a sentimental issue to us and many vested interests are using this topic to sell their products?

All these years, many products like automotives, computers were concentrating only on speed and efficiency and not minimal use of energy. Now they need to because,

• Rising energy prices, together with government-imposed levies on carbon production, are increasingly impacting on the cost of doing business, making many current business practices economically unsustainable.

• To enhance the brand and to improve corporate image.

• Rising energy costs will have an impact on all businesses, and all businesses will increasingly be judged according to their environmental credentials, by legislators, customers and shareholders.

So it’s all about brand and money with a sense of social-corporate responsibility here.

Its bit complicated when it comes to debating on this issue with respect to different countries. Many countries are producing these, so called GHG in excess and many countries that won’t produce GHG are getting affected by these natural calamities. Why? Even though we are different countries, we all are living in a global village. Here comes the interesting topic – carbon tax, carbon credit, carbon offset, carbon cap, when I read in detail about carbon trade etc which contributed wealth for many these factors in detail it amused me and made me raise so many questions and doubts on such regulations. These are simply money making tools for some and in some cases it's hard for regulators to track the records in general.

No one is against green I believe, but are we in a position to go green and if so where are the solutions? Will they take care of all the problems? Does everyone understand the same green language? Why are we struggling so much to achieve greener globe? Very basic questions worry us in this regard I believe. So when we talk about green and including green products in our lives, we really should evaluate the product in a sense of both economy and sentiment. Simply many are using this topic for their vested interests and if they are going green then it’s viable for them otherwise they wouldn’t have dared to. Everyone is behind calculating ROI and the business behind it :( :(

Today we have higher buildings and wider highways but shorter temperaments and narrower points of view.

We spend more but enjoy less.

We have bigger houses, but smaller families.

We have more compromises but less time.

We have more knowledge but less judgment.

We have more medicines but less health.

We have multiplied our possessions but reduced our values.

We talk much, we love only a little, and we hate too much.

We reached the moon and came back but we find it troublesome to cross our own street and meet our neighbors.

We have conquered outer space but not our inner space.

We have higher income, but fewer morals.

These are times with more liberty, but less joy.

We have much more food but less nutrition.

These are days in which two salaries come home, but divorces increased.

These are times of finer houses, but more broken homes.

Sad but true :( :( :(

Cheers,
Vijay...