What’s the Difference Between Green and Sustainability?

During our most recent Green Computing Think Tank in Arlington, Virginia we spent a lot of time focusing on what is the difference between “green” and “sustainability” as it pertains to business.  The consensus seemed to be that “green” is often viewed from a purely environmental standpoint, even though there may be other benefits to ‘going green” beyond saving the planet.  However “sustainability” is a much broader term that denotes preparing the business for best resource savings and optimization.  These resources could be in the form of energy, paper, water, people, space, heat, etc.  It could also be in the form of process overhead, lack of automation and duplicated process execution, etc. 

 

One great comment was that, “Green is a by-product of a successful sustainability initiative.”  At the OMG we’ve found that green can also be a great by-product of other IT initiatives such as SOA and BPM.  A great example of this is a case study we will be featuring at our July 13^th meeting when we head back to Arlington for our next event (you can find more information on this event here: http://www.omg.org/news/meetings/GOV-WS/gc/index.htm)

 

The Keynote case study will feature Kevin D. Moore, Director Transformation Office Unites States Military Entrance Processing Command (USMEPC).  Kevin was one of the award recipients in our BPM Case Study Competition.  Through his explanation of the project he describes the incredible savings they achieved by reducing the use of paper, travel, operating hours, etc. 

Wikipedia describes Sustainability as “in a broad sense, is the capacity to endure. In ecology the word describes how biological systems remain diverse and productive over time”.  Green is described as “a color.”  Perception is everything. 

Comments

[John Owens]

Great post and so true.

"Green" is definitely a by-product of sustainability. The sad thing is that businesses have only thought about becoming sustainable as the result a global financial crises, etc., instead of it being the way all good businesses should always operate.

SOA can definitely help a business head in the right direction. BPM ought to help as well but it does have several inherent shortcomings.

However, all of these shortcomings are avoided by BFM - Business Function Modelling. By 'Functions' I do NOT mean business departments but the CORE activities of the business.

Every step in a Process is a Function. So know your Functions and you can build your Processes.

Data only exists to support Function. So know your functions and you will know your data - MDM and all!

For more information on BFM look at http://www.integrated-modeling-method.com/imm-bpm-business-process-modeling-method/business-function-modeling

Again, great post.

Regards
John