There have been many examples of people openly protesting organisations that blatantly destroy the environment. Could this be the first example of a peaceful campaign to urge a manufacturer to adopt sustainable practices? I was astonished to read earlier this year that Apple ranked lowest in a study of environmental practices by 14 electronic manufacturers.

Greening your products and services is a point of differentiation today. Will it be a cost of entry in the future?

Green My Apple website

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Without fanfare, Toyota is confounding conventional wisdom about U.S. manufacturing. Toyota isn’t outsourcing; it’s creating jobs in the United States. It isn’t having trouble manufacturing complicated products here–it’s opening factories as quickly as its systems and quality standards allow. It’s offering union wages and good health insurance (to avoid being unionized), and selling the products its American workers make to Americans, profitably and more inexpensively than its U.S. competitors.

The real reason it is thriving is because of people like Chad Buckner saying, “There’s no reason to be satisfied.” It’s not just the way Toyota makes cars–it’s the way Toyota thinks about making cars. By constantly questioning how you do things, by constantly tweaking, you don’t outflank your competition next quarter. You outflank them next decade.

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