Green Tech And The Future

What do the Doha Round, Al Gore, and the Wall Street Journal all have in common? They all want to discuss green. No, we’re not talking about a color but a current trend in business where reducing the carbon footprint of companies as well as greenhouse gas emissions is becoming big business. On March 24th, 2008, the Eastern Edition of the Wall Street Journal published an entire section on going green and the business decisions behind it.

So why should a company bother to go green? The corporate game is about the bottom line is it not? Shouldn’t your biggest worry as a CEO be to extract the most benefit out of your resources while passing the costs off on someone else? Fortunately enough, California’s governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is doing something to change that. In 2006, his administration established a cap on greenhouse gas emissions by corporations. Many cried saying it would drive business away from the state but what they have found is instead, business is flocking there. Why might you ask? “As Jeffrey Immelt, General Electric Co.'s CEO, explained, because regulation is coming and he’d just as soon have a seat at that table than have it pushed down his throat.” By using California’s green tech approach, companies can be avant-garde and save themselves millions in the future.

Yet companies are not the only ones jumping on the green-tech bandwagon. Venture Capitalists are seeing a huge potential for income in this field. Americans who tend to be the largest energy consumers are feeling the press of increased prices. This means there is a huge demand for increased efficiency, alternative fuels, and other tech/biotech developments. Enter John Doerr, a partner in an investment firm. Out of $700 million which the company manages, approximately one-third is placed in green-tech. Why take such a large gamble when “the International Energy Agency, which says that right now, about 80% of the world's energy supply comes from fossil fuels? And the prediction of the IEA is that in 25 years, it will be 81%.” Mr. Doerr mentions the internet and how 15 years ago, no one could have predicted the magnitude of commercial browsers. Perhaps green-tech will follow this trend. Yet as Mr. Schwarzenegger said, today, all we can do is invest in biodiesel vehicles, solar panels, and more efficient engines.

Yet what does any industry need? They all need employees. As green-tech develops itself, there will be increased demand for employees skilled in this field. These green-tech employees, often referred to as green-collar workers, work in everything from wind farms to solar-power systems and the factories that make their equipment. Yet what benefits will this bring the U.S. economy? First, an increase in demand for green-tech will reverse the atrophy of the U.S. manufacturing sector with product manufacturing and development occurring stateside. Second, jobs which these employees must fulfill cannot be outsourced since they require onsite work. Third, a focus on educating such workers means demand for more teachers. Therefore, as green-tech increases, so do green-collar