tracking green markets: on one index that’s rising
As a metrics maven, I hold undying affection for stats that paint provocative pictures…like 7th Generation‘s new index of market trends, observations, and responses.
Inkslinger introduces the index as a snapshot of leading environmental indicators that paint a portrait of the state of our world. These “facts and figures that we think say a great deal about where we are today and where we need to go tomorrow.”
Take the brouhaha over prospects for new ‘green’ jobs, for example, and focus on this statistic: waste recycling generates 6 times the number of jobs as landfilling, and 36 times waste incineration (via brightestgreen).
As Nick Ellis notes, “recycling seems to make good business sense on nearly every level.
Here’s a sampling of other factoids from 7th Gen:
- Number of minutes of sunlight hitting Earth needed to meet global energy needs for a year: 1
- Size of the patch of desert needed to meet all U.S. energy using concentrated solar power: 92 x 92 miles
- Percent of total U.S. energy use dedicated to producing food: 19%
- Percent of total U.S. energy use that would be dedicated to producing food if everyone was vegetarian: 13%Percent of air pollution in the western U.S. that originates in China: 15
Says Ellis, “investment is clearly following a growing trend of consumer interest in green alternatives to conventional ways of doing business.”
Stats like these are provoking ‘green entrepreneurs’ to redefine business as we know it. In the process, they’re doing good by doing well.
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