Surprisingly, Treehugger carries news that Wachovia bank in California is turning 300 of its branches green by 2010. A little reading suggests that each branch plans to use 20% less energy, 25 percent less water and have some preferential parking for bikes and low-emission cars.
Is that all you have to do to be green these days? Switch off you lights and ac at night, use the wee-wee flush button on the toilet. Nothing noted about energy savings at their server farms. And how about this great innovation:
At 19 Wachovia employee cafeterias, the bank is reported to be testing a refillable mug program and glassware service programs to reduce use of plastic and paper goods.
Woo. Hoo. Treehugger – sort it out, you’ve lost your teeth!
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Piers -
You’re spot on. Despite announcements every day of companies embracing green, few are actually news worthy.
But this actually says a lot about our culture and where it is headed. Are we just tired of reading the same headlines or is green becoming a cost of entry or both?
Green should be treated neither as a feature or a “new and improved formula”. It’s a strategy for the future. That’s the stuff worth reading about.
July 11th, 2007 at 2:47 pm
two years ago any crappy new building that had LEED certification would be all over every green site; now we don’t look at them unless they are also decent architecture. Two years ago Wachovia would have been on the cover of every newspaper and blog for doing this; now we are all so blase.
While I happen to agree with you about this post, we shouldn’t lose sight of the fact that in America most companies are doing nothing at all besides paying for greenwashing advertisements and funding astroturfers.
July 12th, 2007 at 7:02 am