. The article highlights numerous ideas for a greener business environment - re-glazing that pays back cost and energy output inside two years, penny-pinching on wiring that drives up lifetime costs and energy output and innovative services/leases that can change the economic question from initial investment appraisal to total cost of ownership savings. But the really interesting comment that struck me towards the end was "most businesses are behaving as if people were scarce and nature abundant - the conditions that fueled the first Industrial Revolution". But today's conditions are reversed - people are abundant and natural resources are becoming scarce. That's quite a philosophical challenge to the accepted business strategy norms. How does off-shoring continue to make sense with this philosophy - given the abundance of people here and the increased energy requirements of moving manufacturing overseas (and transporting finished goods back).
The (current) normal business response to a financial challenge/crisis is to cut costs - normally headcount costs and particularly in the "support functions". But if this reduces the amount of maintenance (see BP's record or New York city's bridge maintenance deferral problem), the ultimate cost (in both natural resources and financial capital) can exceed the initial savings. Lovins et al called for a broader measure of business performance - measuring and effectively using human and natural capital as well as financial capital. At least one company has taken this forward seriously - Novo Nordisk in reporting on their triple bottom line.
However, even this triple bottom line reporting is missing the intangible nature of novel ideas. It is said that "creativity, knowledge, innovation and learning now add value far more than land, labour or capital" (OU, p15). Perhaps a quadruple bottom line is needed for the learning organisation.
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