Greennovation

The last 25 to 30 years have set up an interesting paradigm on the business landscape. More is always better. More is always desired. If you were an advertiser, you needed to get people to spend more money on, well, basically everything. If you were the government, you incentivized a collective environment that encouraged ever greater levels of spending and consumption, and, eventually risk-taking. If you were the financial industry, you wanted to create more products to sell to more levels of society to create more returns...and also to borrow ever greater amounts of money. And, finally, the consumer. More features, more technology, more loans, more credit...more, more, more.

The question as to whether the years to come will be different comes with a variety of answers. Some might say that capital investment will be the future engine of growth...that maybe the consumer will be more focused on saving for some time. Some might say investment returns will be...different in the times to come. Whether bullish, bearish, or somewhere in between, there is an interesting trend emerging that transcends a lot of political or market prognostication. This is something that can be embraced regardless of viewpoint, position, or leaning. It refocuses the discussion away from the next government program or the bears that have been calling for a correction for the last 6-months without really seeing one of any significance, and it brings it back to the core of the Global economy. Ideas, specifically, brilliant ideas and innovations, are what brought us to this point and to the society in which we live. Consistently figuring out ways to get "more" of this or that in the easiest way possible is simply not sustainable. As a society we will be driven by the original, the innovative, and the new. If we are to progress out of the current economic downturn in a way that will engendersustainability, we cannot focus on rebuilding or holding onto things that brought us to where we are today, but rather, it must be about looking towards something new. In 1909, would we have really been able to conceptualize cars, blogs, nuclear anything or even half the things that we rely on during our daily lives? How can we say today what will happen or be happening in 2109?

Well...we can say this today. If our society is going to make it to 2109, it wouldn't hurt to change the focus. How can we get MORE (always an attractive prospect within human nature) by using LESS.

Efficiency. Productivity. All of those words will be key, and can be seen as already being key. Over the past 6-months, companies have beat their projected earnings in record fashion. Interesting...considering we are in one of the worst economic downturns since the great depression. Some might say that it wouldn't make sense that companies should be beating analyst expectations in this fashion, but, accounting trickery aside, they're doing it by generating the same or similar top lines with less inputs and costs. Less employees, less materials...LESS in fact leading to more. It will never be detrimental to consider resource uses with a consistent focus on how to make sure things are being done in the best and most efficient way possible.

In fact, going GREEN and considering these types of ideas in the normal course of business activity has actually been proven to be more beneficial than most might think...

GREEN OIL: Bio-fuels are one of those "next big things." Everyone has seen the funny ads with the socially and environmentally conscious individuals traversing the country with a peace-corps like zeal and dedication on nothing more than fuel made from vegetables. Completely sustainable "green crude." What if algae was able to be created and developed so that the harvesting process for this fuel could be completely streamlined and more of it could be more efficiently produced? Synthetic Genomics, led by J. Craig Venter, and Sapphire Energy, backed by Bill Gates, are engineering algae currently. Their goal is to come up with a sustainable substitute for gasoline, jet fuel, and even diesel.

Once the idea of EXTRA COST and FINANCIAL

TRADEOFFS are tackled, sustainability is realized to be essentially one of the biggest current catalysts of organizational and technological innovation. Immediately, some of the most logical cost savings comes from using less inputs, some of the increased revenues come from better products, and some of the best ideas come from new business entrepreneurship. The smart way to think of environmental preservation is not as an increased cost, but instead as innovation's new frontier. The time is now, as it's never too soon to take up the charge and secure invaluable first-mover advantages. There are always going to be a plethora of opinions about public policies and best practices...and it's a safe bet that there will come a time again when people think less about saving for tomorrow and focus on consuming for today. One thing will be certain, however, and that is the fact that practicing economically sound innovations with a focus on preservation of the environment will not be going out of style any time soon. In some ways, LESS will always lead to MORE.