Earth Day 2010: The Business of Green

The first Earth Day was in 1970, it was a grass roots movement by people seeking to protect our environment. Now many leading environmental advocacy organizations accept sponsorships from corporations and these partnerships are helping to change social behavior.

On Earth Day, businesses large and small play varying roles supporting the transition to more sustainable commerce.

Many companies are using Earth Day day as a premier marketing platform for selling a variety of goods and services. Businesses are using Earth day as an opportunity to inform their customers about their environmentally friendly initiatives but the business community is also increasingly leading the way in environmental innovation.

The Earth Day Network and Proctor & Gamble are collaborating on social networks. With the launch of the Billion Acts of GreenTM Facebook and iPhone applications, friends, family and followers are being asked to issue pledges of at least one “act of green” and share it with their Facebook network.

Greenpeace is working with technology giants like Cisco and Google to disseminate information on technologies like videoconferencing and “cloud” computing that can reduce a company’s carbon footprint.

With the help of PepsiCo. NYC is reducing its impact on the environment in partnership with Keep America Beautiful, a nonprofit organization, that is introducing “dream machines,” recycling kiosks. These machines are meant to increase the recycling rates for beverage containers, which is estimated at only about 36 percent nationwide.

Other smaller enterprises are also taking part. Fore example, across the US gardening businesses went into schools to encourage children to grow vegetables or plants as part of the Earth Day celebrations.

Most businesses are keeping an eye on the demand for environmental offerings. Smart businesses are responding to those seeking greener poducts and practices.

Although we still have a far way to go, increasingly consumers and business are being drawn together by the kind of free market capitalism that will build a more sustainable world.