Vik Duggal takes this Earth Day to question the term “green”. Really want to thank you in advance for your 5 minutes. Hopefully you help start a conversation. Have a terrific day!
green is garbage
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Green is a color and that is all it should be…Pushups!
Hi Vik,
I know exactly what you are saying about the word ‘green.’ It is a broad term encompassing every facet of life.
I fought putting it in my business for a long time, but *for now*, it is the word people recognize and respond to. The Twitter Twibe ‘Green’ is bigger than the Twibe ‘Sustainability.’
No one and nothing is 100% green. There is always a trade-off. I replaced my single-pane windows with low-e vinyl. Sure, vinyl is no good, but I cut my heating bill drastically, and vinyl fit my budget.
I burn wood for heat, which is renewable, but according to my energy audit, I will have a better HERS score if I replace with a gas stove.
Maybe someone can walk or bike to the supermarket, but they’d have to drive to the farmers market. What’s the right answer?
There is no right answer, because everyone’s needs and situations are different. We all just need to work towards reducing our emissions as much as possible.
Hopefully, the word ‘green’ will eventually disappear, because ‘green’ will be the norm. In the meantime, I don’t think that word is going away.
Nan
Green is a marketing term. Nothing more.
Nice video dude.
Hey Vik,
Enjoyed the vid!
Green is not a destination, it’s a journey.
It’s not a goal, it’s a mindset.
It’s not a mandate, it’s a choice.
I think the green movement is waking up to the fact that without clear market incentives, it’s impossible to know what to focus on. Nan above makes some good points about carbon emissions that definitely point out the futility? of trying to go “zero.”
It’s like the human race is in a car that is about to be struck from the side by another car (climate) running a red light. We have two choices, slam on the brakes and try to slow down our momentum before the crash (not avoiding it) – this is like lowering emissions, reducing resource usage, yada yada, the typical “green” spiel, OR we can gun the gas pedal and try to zoom past the collision using the engine, which in my tortured metaphor represents human ingenuity and technology.
Human technology started these problems. Technology will solve them. What we all need to do is focus on how we can generate more efficient, more clean, less wasteful systems that are *market based* so they send clear signals to everyone about how much, when, and when to stop.
Everyone interested in sustainability should read this:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/21/science/earth/21tier.html
I have endless faith in the human mind (when it is free) and I have little faith in the benevolence of government planning, perhaps this shows through in my posting! Let’s do less cap and trade, and do more trade. In the end that is what will save our species.
PS – we need to escape planet Earth anyway. We are too vulnerable here. Long-term (very very long-term) our species will head to space, unless it is destroyed by space objects, nuclear weapons, solar flares, magnetic field reversal, epidemic, or yes, climate change. ALL of these are risks we face, and ALL of them require some pretty quick thinking and technology before we can be reasonably safe from them. Focusing *just* on climate is a big mistake. What we need to be doing is building new technologies that will eventually allow us to colonize the starts. “You can say I’m a dreamer. But I’m not the only one.”
That should have been “colonize the stars”. I’d rather do that than colonize the starts.
@Rich – Please do a post on green pushups. I’d be interested in that.
@Nan – Why does the word “green” work in your company?
What you’ve described and done makes sense to me. But I would say if you go to the Farmers’ market, do you carpool? What kind of car do you drive to get there? How frequently do you go today? How frequently do you NEED to go? With regards to your windows – is that the BEST you can do? Do you have a plan to be able to do better? Is that a goal you’ve set for yourself?
I think there is a right answer. EXPLAIN it! If you say your Green then tell us why. When we adhere to any standard out there, people (I’m guilty of it) by default think that those are the only criteria for quality. There will never and should never be the ONE AND ONLY way to be green.
We’ll should all do a better job of explaining ourselves.
Do you have a sustainability plan/policy on your website?
@Geekgiant – Thank man!
Thanks Jason! Really appreciated your comments.
Question – Don’t you all think that green isn’t really sustainable? I mean at some point the buzz word will change, or we’ll just stop using the word altogether. Doesn’t that then mean that “green” isn’t sustainable because it’s just buzz worthy for now?
Part of me feels that if I see the word “green” I’ll be turned off because they’re only using it for the NOW.
Vik, You make me proud to know you. I am all over conservation, totally against pollution, love the woods I live in… but the hypocrisy of the “green” agenda drives me away from anything to do with it. It’s almost a “green mob”. I can’t separate those that are really moving to conserve, from those that are moving to tax, and those that are in it for the money shift. Dittos to GeekGiant – it’s more buzz… just like in my world where everybody and their mother is using “cloud computing”… Oy!
Danny – That’s truly humbling. Thank you! Thanks for the analogy into your world. I’m sure many of our readers have heard of “cloud computing” and didn’t realize it is YET another buzz word.
Here’s an example of a company doing IT the right way:
Firehouse Restaurant & Bar
Vik,
Great post, really enjoyed it. Forwarded it to my wife… she’s been distressed about “green” for a couple of years now. GeekGiant and Danny are both right, ” green” and “cloud” are marketing buzz and not much more. If we could monetize a green-twitter-cloud account on Oprah we’d all be millionaires.
Here’s a link from the WSJ about anything with “cloud” making more money and no one really knowing why… http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123802623665542725.html#mod=todays_us_nonsub_page_one
I also find both of these debates remarkably amusing, because I happen to own a consulting business that I would say is operating 100% in the cloud through SAS (Software as Service) and happen to also be building a sustainable farm. Am I part of the hype or part of the solution?
When I was asked a few months ago by a very well respected developer and president of the local chapter of the USGBC to lead the “advocacy” team, I gave it some serious thought. A few days and a few very intense conversations with some very intelligent and tuned-in on-the-bus sort of folks later, I told this individual that I would lead the team, but that my efforts will be to focus on two things – in the short term, engaging public policy makers to create significant financial incentives for economic development throughout the region contingent upon strict environmental standards for attaining such incentives; and the long term goal is to turn “green” building into just “building.” There will always be those resistant to change, but if the market demands it, the suppliers will buckle. My efforts will hopefully benefit my community by focusing on all three principles of the triple bottom line – benefit the people of the region by improving their quality of life, the prosperity of the region by encouraging economic development, and the planet by incorporating environmental guidelines.