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the process, there is hope that we all can be more conscious and conscien-
tious with our electronic disposal.
Google’s last effort, and one of the most important, is to partner with
their community and translate their efforts into a broader application,
industry wide. They realize, as we do, that one company can make a dif-
ference, but the real reward will come when those efforts are applied in a
broader sense. We believe that project managers, thinking of the greenal-
ity of their projects and processes, will be the leaders of that effort.

oFFiCe dePot
Does Office Depot immediately come to mind when you think about green
initiatives? It didn’t to us either. However, their motto is “Buy Green, Be
Green, Sell Green.” So how do they intend to live up to their motto?

Buying green
When Office Depot talks about buying green they are looking at three
aspects: (1) sourcing greener office products, (2) buying paper from certi-
fied “responsibly managed forests,” and (3) buying greener office products
for their own internal use. You see, there is a parallel to our assertions
about projects. Here, the internally used office products are akin to the
project itself being as green as possible.
The company has produced a Green Buyer’s Guide (http://
www.officedepot.com/promo.do?file=/guides/buygreen/buygreen.jsp)
that covers products from paper with recycled content, to green desk
accessories made from recycled material, to products using nontoxic glues
and inks, to nontoxic cleaning supplies, to HEPA air cleaners. The guide
contains a plethora of information on how to green a project. We particu-
larly like this quote from their Web site: “But while we know bold moves
are sometimes necessary, we believe the long-term path to sustainability
is through more companies, including our own, making small every day
purchasing decisions with the environment as a consideration. As dis-
cussed in our Green Buyer’s Guide, we think an incremental approach
to green purchasing will grow markets for sustainable products more
successfully than a purist one, where only greenest products are seen as
‘good enough.’”