Green Production

Reuse/Recycling

Where at all possible, green production will make use of waste materials and residues as raw material although, typically, such substances require more processing. Here again the motivation is to reduce production waste and to capture for continued use energy already embedded in the waste. Economic forces have, of course, long favored such reuse where the wastes are relatively uniform or abundant. Secondary paper mills and electric furnaces to remelt scrap steel predate the environmental movement. Green production is an extension of this market-driven recycling achieved by redesign of processes.

Minimizing Energy Use

Modern processing has evolved around the use of machines driven by energy and the use of chemical solvents and catalyst in preparing raw materials. The two environmentally superior means of getting the same job done are to use labor instead of machines—and time. High-powered paint-spraying, for example, requires more energy, produces more pollution (unless very carefully shielded) and, especially if combined with high-heat drying systems, is much more rapid than hand painting followed by just letting time pass as the painted objects dry. Many variants of this general approach are used.

Waste Handling

In green production wastes are intensively managed to keep them useful for immediate recovery or reuse as energy in on-site furnaces. In many such production facilities, organic wastes are further treated—by composting, for instance. The waste-handling aspects of production may therefore, in turn, produce additional products for sale.

ECONOMIC AND OTHER AMBIGUITIES

Green production specifically, but green commerce as a whole, has ambiguous aspects arising from higher costs generally and the form of the dominant production culture, particularly, the nature of the U.S. consumer market. U.S. industry has evolved from a dominantly agricultural past in which the small farmer was the "typical" American to a high-geared energy/chemical culture where the typical American works in or out of an office. Automation is the norm of production—which depends, ultimately, on oil fueling machines. Green business looks back and,—once oil resources are depleted—perhaps also forward to a simpler and much more labor-intensive time. But that time is not yet. For that reason, green goods generally cost more. But they are consumed by a public wealthy from the exploitation of oil and technology.

Using 2003 data released by the Central Intelligence Agency (The CIA World Factbook), the U.S. had 4.6 percent of the world's population but consumed 25.9 percent of global oil—the highest consumption rate in the world. Oil consumption may be viewed as a proxy of all other consumption. Consumption of goods and energy is the cause of virtually all environmental pressures—and the U.S. consumption "footprint" is the largest. The American (and for that matter European) embrace of environmentalism can thus be seen in a cynical light as perhaps a well-meaning but naiuüve and sentimental activity: the recycling bin, after all, is sitting right there, next to the SUV. Another view of this situation—the reason why it is ambiguous—is that the broad public reflects a dim but clear realization that the current culture is not "sustainable" and needs to change. And many members of it are willing to pay for that by paying higher prices for green goods.

THE SMALL GREEN BUSINESS

Small business is not only well-represented in the green market but, judging by the products on offer out there, also the largest supplier, in terms of enterprises, of this sector. Small business typically leads in innovation—because it is less weighed down by institutional inertia. As the 21st century advances, small business owners are perhaps, like the public at large, hearing the beat of a different drummer.

 PREV  1 | 2