Green Industry ECOnomics - LandcareNetwork.org

Chapter 1:
Sustainability Is a Trend, Not a Fad
Sustainability Defined
— Meeting present needs with out compromising
the ability of future generations
to meet their needs.
— Using methods, systems, and materials
that won’t deplete resources or harm natural
cycles.
— Doing onto future generation as you
would have them do onto you.
A new worldwide consciousness
is dawning and is spreading
faster than wildfire. It’s
arriving with huge challenges,
but it also promises to create
enormous opportunities for
industries and the companies
within those industries to tap
into. The most common word
used to describe it is “sustainable,”
and that word is everywhere
all of a sudden.
You also can’t escape what it stands for, which is the process of becoming
leaner and greener — leaner in terms of waste reduction, and greener with
regards to adding the environmental component to everyday business transactions
involving products and services. The two concepts are complimentary.
You can hardly have one without the other.
Those of us in the green indus try, of course, have been in the “green” business
from the beginning. The challenge now is to become the acknowledged
environmental ser vices leaders within our urban and suburban markets.
That may mean looking within our own organizations and at our customers’
properties in newer, more creative ways, and learning skills and providing
products and services we have never offered before. We may even have to
modify or abandon some of the services and technologies that have gotten
us to this point. One thing is for certain, it means changing; that is, changing
the way we think, the way we see, and the way we act.
Paradoxically, if you look around, you can find reasons not to change. For
one thing, the majority of the public has yet to substantially embrace “green,”
especially if doing so costs them extra. “Very few people today are making
buying decisions based on what is green,” said Honey Rand, Ph.D., APR,
president and CEO of Environmental PR Group of Lutz, Florida, at the May
2009 meeting of the American Society of Irrigation Consultants. “Green is the
new branding. There is so much green now that it (the term) has no meaning
anymore,” she added.
2 Green Industry ECOnomics