Essays

Green Productivity is a holistic strategy whereby nations can leverage the dynamism of productivity to achieve a better quality of life for all people, with social justice and fairness for their citizenry, and enhanced prosperity for their enterprises.

Green Productivity has proven to be a practical approach for enterprises and communities. Green Productivity enables them to innovate their business practices while improving environmental performance. Recent application of Green Productivity in communities to foster economic development  and environmental protection shows evidence of success. As Green Productivity offers step-by-step guidance with a portfolio of proven tools, techniques and technologies, it has universal appeal. This is an important attribute of Green Productivity.

The starting line was productivity as a cost reduction strategy. By picking up the baton of quality, productivity has metamorphosed to incorporate environmental protection and community enhancement as a means to increase prosperity. Under the umbrella of Green Productivity, innovation, a key engine of economic growth, becomes part of a holistic strategy to move towards a sustainable future.

Green Productivity is a strategy for simultaneously enhancing productivity and environmental performance. Its aim is well- rounded socio-economic development that leads to sustained improvement in the quality of human life. It is the combined application of appropriate productivity and environmental management tools, techniques and technologies that reduce the environmental impact of an organisation's activities, products and services while enhancing profitability and competitive advantage.

Previous approaches to environmental protection have tended to ignore economic performance. Regulators were tasked with the dubious honour of having to closely monitor those with the deepest pockets and most suspect of the greatest 'wrongdoing' - sparked by the events such as Chernobyl & Bhopal. This surveillance has led to substantial reductions in single point source pollution in most countries. However it has left the seemingly trivial individual contribution of day-to-day inefficiencies in other larger and smaller enterprises and public organisations unattended.

Essentially the practice of Green Productivity results in using material resources and energy more efficiently and sustainably - doing better with less. We know spurring innovation for products and services enhances economic development, therefore greening innovative minds enables development with less risk of socio- economic and environmental degradation.

According to the World Economic Forum's Year 2000 Report, the ability of a nation to improve its competitiveness is measured by its environmental performance in addition to more traditional economic criteria. Central to improved competitiveness is productivity. This makes the concept of Green Productivity a simple but elegant solution - to make environmental protection a core business attractor instead of an isolated cost contributor.

Governments have an important role to play in supporting this transition. Green Productivity builds political will, community confidence and profit-oriented results. There are signals that supporting market driven approaches will pay off.

Both governments and private enterprises are interested in moving away from end-of-pipe technologies to prevention of pollution. It is seen as a shift in both the public and private sectors moving their attention regarding environmental policy and management upwards and forward. The strategy and technologies in Green Productivity reinforce this refreshing shift.

Cooperative competition in theory and in practice can reduce costs and spread economic development opportunities. We must cooperate beyond our traditional borders to bring competitive advantage to local communities, a market driven variation of the 'think globally, act locally' mantra.

We need to send a powerful message to the market - that natural capital must be integrated into pricing. We need to move our money and our management decisions upstream and recognize the true costs of inefficiency. Governments must make policy decisions that overcome the barriers to change. By adopting Green Productivity into national policy, we can take action to foster greener innovation.

The results of Green Productivity have enabled enterprises to dare to think beyond compliance, to obtain competitive advantage. Greening Productivity changes the pace of the marathon — the stakes involved are enormous. We have everything to gain; but we risk all if we do not enter the race.