The Greener By Design Conference held on April 25-27, 2008 helped people see how to innovate while being green. The goal of the conference (as provided by the Greener By Design website) was to: 
* Teach companies the "how-to" of building sustainability into the product development process with a focus on greening mainstream products, both consumer and B-to-B
* Go beyond high-level views by providing cutting edge strategies, tools, techniques and markets for greener products with an emphasis on biomimicry, cradle-to-cradle design and green chemistry
* Integrate design processes into development of business strategies to include sales and marketing
* Learn from leadership companies as well as participate interactively with unique workshops
* Impress the importance of sustainability for company innovation and future growth
* Provide an unmatched networking opportunity between leaders in the industry, practitioners in product development and design, environmental stewards, supply chain management, business strategists and marketers and prominent design schools students and educators  

Softchoice has created a new initiative where individuals can find listings of green information technology products. The database which carries 350,000 products that are registered under EPEAT greener electronics program is available on Softchoice' website, www.softchoice.com. EPEAT (Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool) is a system designed to assist purchasers in evaluating computers and monitors based on their environmental abilities.    

Kodak set out internal goals several years ago to ensure that they would become a sustainable company. Their success in meeting those goals has been so quick that new benchmarks will need to be set, according to a Kodak spokesman. The company has reduced their total energy consumption by 30% since 2002, reduced greenhouse gas emissions by 28%, and reduced occupational injury rates by 58%. 

Most companies were aware of Earth Day and made efforts to participate in an initiative on that day. But if your company would like to continue sustainable practices after Earth Day then it may benefit from applying organizational change research. According to Cathy A. Rusinko, Ph.D., associate professor of management, School of Business Administration, Philadelphia University there are ways of encouraging employees to become active in sustainable practices. Ms. Rusinko provides us with the top ten way and organization can promote green initiatives. 

Nike has joined forces with four factories in China and Vietnam to help them become more energy efficient. The strategy for each factory is different but the focus will be on where each facility consumes the majority of their energy. This may be fairly difficult as a factory may contain more than 15,000 motors, 10,000 light bulbs and up to 6,000 sewing machines not to mention a number of chillers, boilers and compressor fans.  

Being Green has become so hot that it's lead to "green gridlock, with multiple companies filing for almost-identical marks at nearly the same time," wrote Glenn Gundersen, chair of Dechert's trademark practice, in the report. "Clearly, it's not easy being green, since a trademark by definition is a distinctive term. ... Many of these me-too filings will either not merit legal protection or will be very weak trademarks."

In 2006, green themed marks spiked by 10% in trademark filings topping 300,000. Applications ranged from the obvious terms, such as go green, eco-friendly to the obscure such as ("Green Is the New Black," "Red States, Blue States, Green States".