Green Challenges for Manufacturing

In a guest column authored by Bruce Anderson, IBM’s Global General Manager for the Electronics Industry, in the Environmental Leader (10/12/08), Anderson discusses how the manufacturing industry is dealing with green requirements:

“Manufacturing, for instance, has myriad opportunities for carbon reduction. These include manufacturing strategy, supplier relationship management, production/materials development and planning, product/component manufacturing, assembling and packaging of products, plant inventory management and transportation– each with numerous dimensions on which to attack the carbon footprint.”

He responds to many business owners’ concern that going green will erode the bottom line:

“Some people, conditioned to think of “profitable green” as an oxymoron, might wonder if this is a pipe dream. * * * We estimate that, over the last eight years, the annual savings from our focus on pollution prevention and design has exceeded our environmental expenses by an average of two to one. Plainly put, for every dollar we spent to protect the environment, we saved two — a “green” dividend.”

Anderson’s article identifies several actions manufacturers can implement to address environmental concerns. You can find it here:

http://www.environmentalleader.com/2008/10/12/the-evolving-green-challenge-for-manufacturing/