Compliance makes you competitive

In his paper entitled, “Green Compliance: Yes, It’s a Competitive Advantage,” Eric Karofsky, analyst at ARM Research, quotes former GE VP in the Wall Street Journal saying, “Law and regulation, ironically, can be market enhancing because then all regulated entities face the same obligations under the law and the smartest corporations will find a way to comply completely with imagination and less cost.”

Karofsky agrees, citing several examples of companies that have met their compliance obligations while enhancing their competitive position:

·GE spent $1.5 billion on Ecomagination. The effort helped address the company’s spotty environmental past and transform its image to an environmental leader.

·IBM multibillion dollar GARS unit collects 20,000 end-of-lease machines each week and resells, refurbishes or dismantles them, thus contributing less than 2 percent of its old machines to landfill.

·Sun’s CoolThreads technology increases the performance of its servers five-fold while reducing energy consumption, thus creating ROI for its customers.