Barrett,

Sorry you did not here back for someone.  Several of us thought the other person was responding to your questions.  Anyway, if my answers will help, here you go.

I have just returned from the Event Marketing Institute's:  "Green" Summit.  The focus of the summit was about being more environmentally, socially, and corporately responsible for the one planet we have.  A tremendous amount of good info came out of the conference.

Specific to your question concerning mistakes, I believe that many people have been quick to jump on the bandwagon, so to speak, and market themselves as "green".  They may not have drilled down deep enough to look at all of the ramifications of their actions. There are so many shades of "Green".  Many firms are promoting that their company or their product is GREEN. This is often just a small piece of the overall picture. When searching for vendors and sources of products and services, firms need to verify and understand fully what they are getting that is green.  Please understand, every little bit helps and this is going to be a long continuous process that we as humans must never stop.  That said, everyone should analyze their activities and their purchases to make sure that the trade offs are really worth the cost and the environmental effect.  For example, if we did in fact convert large portions of the US corn production to the making of ethanol to lower our dependency on foreign oil, does that outweigh the increase in food costs of some many products that use corn syrup.  There needs to be a balance.

For a cost savings stand point, so much of our daily activities and purchases could help the "greening" of the environment with just minor changes on our part. Separating trash in glass, metal, paper, and compost would be a great start. This lowers landfill costs and businesses will now pay for the separated items. Going back to less use of plastic bottles, or at least get away for single serve containers at events, and recycled or recyclable paper products instead of plastic items can immediately lower costs. As firms begin to use more sustainable products, the economies of scale on their manufacturing will improve and lower the associated costs in the long run.  Here again, the key factor is that this is going to take time, but it must be done.  For our future and our children's future, the human race must give back to itself and the planet we are lucky enough to live on. 

OK Barrett, I will get off my soap box.

Hope this helps.

John Rose