by Ryan Robert Hallett

Created on: May 25, 2010   Last Updated: May 26, 2010

Going green has never been more popular - and profitable! In case you ever wonder whether a given company's green offerings are a marketing ploy, rest assured, they probably are. While a small business owned by an individual or couple, such as a shop or a home improvement company, may certainly adopt environmentally friendly practices as an act of conscience, the bigger a corporation gets, the greater the beaurocracy, and the greater the potential fallout from making sweeping changes to the way business is done.

Given that, if a huge company is going green, it is almost certainly doing so for the money - either to gain market share or just to stay afloat in today's green economy.

The wallets have spoken. Consumer demand is driving appliance-makers to meet Energy Star efficiency requirements, product packaging to be minimized and the remainder composed of recycled materials, and perhaps most prominently, car manufacturers are now basically being forced to reduce or eliminate the need for fossil fuels.

While some of these changes will eventually pay themselves off, particularly where manufacturing plants take measures to reduce energy consumption, they still cost money, in some cases a lot of it, and therefore pose a risk. Companies don't like risk, especially where there is no immediate gratification involved.

For most, it is the need to remain in the game, rather than a heroic act of environmental stewardship which convinces a company to make the switch, and is therefore by definition a marketing ploy.

Now that we've established that, essentially, a corporation as an entity has no conscience, we have to ask ourselves: Does it matter the motive? If we can assume that a company, with its many shareholders and its drive for profit, has as its sole purpose consuming our money in order to survive, then really its motives are our motives.

Going green is as essential to a corporation's survival as it is to ours. It may be a trend, but it's one that will last if we are to survive as a species and as consumers.

To reject brands for hopping on the green bandwagon would be as counterproductive in our journey towards a brighter future as was the last century of carelessness, because they will do what we tell them. This is a ride we all want to catch, as it may be our last chance.

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