Thoughts on “Green” SharePoint
MOSS 2007 offers a great deal to the business that wants to make use of process improvements, automated workflows, and continuous improvement projects to make their organizations more efficient, cost effective, and potentially more competitive. That is a driving factor in my interest in SharePoint (plus SharePoint people are a bunch of fun). I believe that standardizing tasks and processes can improve not only the productivity of a business, but also improve the work environment for employees.
SharePoint can also be utilized as a tool to better enable a business to act in a “green” manner. Sharing documents and working online can reduce paper consumption and waste. Automating business processes utilizing workflows can reduce time spent on these tasks which COULD be redirected to identifying other areas where the company may change the impact they have on our environment. The efficiency gained this way allows the time spent on green initiatives to cost the company nothing…thereby improving the roi and goodwill received by implementing any green initiative.
This concept of businesses going green isn’t new, and I am not alone in applying it in “new” and “different” ways. Some examples include:
Project Management – see Turning Green: A Quality Standards Approach to Green Projects
Green Business Guide (US Government) Marketing and Product Development
Web Sites devoted to Green Business:
GreenBiz.com – Daily News on Green Business
GreenerDesign – Greener by Design conference – looking at designing green products
GreenBusiness.net – An Online Community for Eco Entrepreneurs
New Alternatives Fund – Mutual Fund Investing in alternative energy
GreenInc. – NY Times Blog
There are many more sites out there…this sampling hopefully displays the direction some business thinking is going. You will see some posts mixed in focusing on ‘green’ topics, especially related to IT or SharePoint…that is just how I roll.
Tony Rockwell - Info 
Leave a Reply