It's totally SUBJECTIVE. There is no agreed upon criteria, nor should there be. "green" is as fungible (and essentially as meaningless) a term as "sustainability." To try to categorize companies as "sustainable" or "green" is not only impossible, it's silly, to be candid. It's all about what criteria YOU choose. You can make a great, even compelling case that Altria is one of the world's greenest companies (it's CR rankings are high in everything but the impact of its products) while Body Shop and Ben and Jerry's are one of the world's worst actors (both turn out wasteful, even ridiculous products from a "green perspective" and run what amount to sweat shop/Ponzi scheme business franchise models)
The real challenge to a student is to let them engage the issue of trying to define sustainabiliy and green, so hopefully they can understand that it totally depends on the litmus test variables he/she chooses.
On Feb 8, 2010, at Feb 8, 2010 1:24 PM, Hansen, David J wrote:
I have a student starting a project to assess the state of green business locally, somewhat modeled on what GreenBiz.com does. One difference will be to look only at businesses classified in some way as "green" rather than all businesses. Has anyone done a similar study? If so, can you share it with us?
I have suggested that he let businesses self-select by asking them to define how they qualify as a green business. But has anyone used specific criteria to distinguish "green" from other businesses?
Thanks in advance,
Dave
David J. Hansen, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Entrepreneurship
Department of Management and Entrepreneurship
College of Charleston
Office: Tate Center 308
Phone: 843-953-6447