If you’ve been in a coma for the last couple of years you might have missed the emergence of an enormous awareness of global warming and a focus on being “green”.  What may not be as apparent is the shift that has occurred in the strategic vision and mission of most companies and how to capitalize upon green is on the lips of most business people. This is occurring while simultaneously there has been an increasing concern about business continuity in a day of terrorism, avian flu and accelerating gasoline prices and, most importantly, an explosion of innovation and disruption of business status quo causing leaders to re-think how people collaborate, create and innovate.

There are so many incredibly simple things you can do to make a personal and positive change in your impact on being green: turn off lights and replace your incandescent bulbs with compact fluorescents; conserve water; don’t drive around if you don’t have to or carpool; recycle; stop the herbicide and pesticide use; and so forth.

Businesses are made up of people (who are obviously negatively impacted by global warming) and are increasingly buying green products and services from others and pressuring companies to become more green. One could argue it’s in every firms best interest to be green, deliver green products and services, and help their employees become more so in order to be more profitable and be good corporate citizens. As long as what companies do doesn’t “dilute shareholder value” most senior leadership will react and many already are going green and profiting from doing so.

But what if making less of an impact was good for the bottom line and could also become part of helping employees be more productive and, most importantly, turned out to be a fabulous way to mitigate risk, ensure business continuity in the event of a catastrophe and sparked creativity and innovation through collaboration?

As always, what I’m about to argue isn’t a magic bullet nor is it a research paper on business continuity, collaboration and being green. It’s just a couple of dots I’ve connected that you might find worthwhile.

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