GREEN BUSINESS – It’s no secret that America is going green. Green jobs are popping up everywhere, whether it’s the technician installing solar panels on a home, the scientist researching ways to build better batteries for electric cars, or the executive looking for ways to reduce waste, eliminate unnecessary packaging, and cut costs. Job growth in this area is expected to top 50% by 2016, nearly four times the job growth for all other occupations combined, according to the federal government. And a number of Presidential initiatives, including billions in new investments in renewable energy, energy efficiency, and energy research, are likely to accelerate that job growth.
[via BusinessWeek]
What is a business - anyway? As usual, Wikipedia offers a pretty good definition: “In economics, business is the social science of managing people to organize and maintain collective productivity toward accomplishing particular creative and productive goals, usually to generate profit.” Not surprisingly, as is the case for any highly complex system or entity, this is just one of multiple definitions.
In quantum mechanics we learn that questions like “what is an electron?” are meaningless unless one also asks “what is your purpose in asking this question?”
An electron is sometimes best thought of as a particle, and sometimes best thought of as a wave depending on what models or measurements one is after. Similarly, one cannot separate asking what a business is from how one wants to use the answer. But I am actually most satisfied with the people-centric definition Wikipedia gives, because I truly believe it is the most important one.
[via Irving Wladawsky-Berger]
International Business Machines has long been viewed as a barometer for corporate technology spending. And its second-quarter results, announced after the close of the market on Thursday, provided another encouraging sign for the technology sector. Yet I.B.M.’s performance, analysts say, is probably an indication that the company’s strategic steps in recent years are paying off, rather than a broad endorsement for the technology industry as a whole.
[via NYTimes]
In a survey released in September 2008 by KPMG, the audit, tax and advisory firm, two-thirds of those polled said that green technology investment is sustainable. Almost all said they expected venture capital for start-ups producing these technologies to continue to increase in 2009. Half predicted an increase of 20 percent or more over 2008 levels. [via NYTimes]
I wonder what the current statistics look like for the first half of 2009? I have a feeling they were very close. Green is not only trendy right now, but it’s the way of the future. Green is sustainable, and makes good business sense. Message to firms out there: get in before you’re toast.
