‘Lean and green is free, but it is not a gift’ writes Keivan Zokaei for leanblog.org

What follows is a guest post by Keivan Zokaei about the necessary and unsurprisingly overlap between Lean principles and environmental stewardship. The following article featured on www.leanblog.org

“Lean and green is free, but it is not a gift[i]”. It might seem counterintuitive, but lowering our impact on the environment means lowering costs. The reasons are the same ones that underpinned the “quality movement” of 1960s and 1970s. When making poor quality products (or services), we waste time, energy, and resources. So, not making mistakes in the first place is much cheaper and also guarantees better customer satisfaction. By the same token, sustainable business means not wasting resources and energy, which, in turn, means cheaper and better products.

Today, the “sustainability movement” stands where the “quality movement” stood around 40 years ago. As with the quality movement, the issue with Lean and green is NOT what people don’t know, but rather what people think they know about it. The prevailing paradigm for Lean thinkers is that “environment is a cost”. That’s why far too many Lean practitioners delay the integration of Lean and green.

Read the full article on www.leanblog.org