Green Business Management

What is Green Business Management? A literature research would not give a certain hint, because no proper definition of the topic is available. Since years there are “Green Companies”, but they define themselves to be “green” mostly through activities in their corporate social responsibility towards ecological issues. A market is developing, there is something starting to be established, which is also affecting us all. So we chose “Green Business Management” to be the mayor topic of this year's Rubicon Contest.

Today, companies are only acknowledged to be ecological responsible, if they just use environmentally friendly processes. The definition of “environment” is often that narrow, that major parts of a company are left out. In some companies environmental actions are less or even not mentioned when it comes to employees, natural resources, processes, suppliers, or the distribution. But these factor have also a major influence on the sustainability.

Sustainability is often seen as the strategy to keep a company's profits on a high level in the future. The topic was reduced to the economic environment. Influencing issues like employees, natural resources or the pollution were seen to be not changing at all. A distinguished approach must see them as a variable through the whole supply chain.

Keeping this in perspective, managing those issues must be a major challenge running a company. All parts of the supply chain of a company must balance economical as well as environmental and social matters. This will hence changes and foster innovations, with those the company will gain a competitive advantage.

In every company there are potentials of development through a more effective usage of resources. To activate those, investments are needed. In the long run, costs will be reduced due to less resources needed, the willingness of the consumer to pay more for “green” products and the company's ability to react on future issues more flexible.