No green-sanctimony intended (well, much)

My article was titled “Magazines vs. the environment.” In it, I argued that InfoWorld‘s shift to an online-only publication happily happens to have positive environmental benefits, including saving trees (one weekly magazine subscription on average results in 90 additional pieces of mail, according to the USPS) and reducing fuel consumption and gas emissions involved in getting our magazine to mailboxes every week. (The New York Times had a great article on the general subject last year, by the way, as the publishing industry as a whole struggles with its effects on the environment.)

Whether or not you think that InfoWorld‘s shift to focusing on the Web and events is a good overall business move, the green benefits — which I described as a “healthy by-product” to the transition — are indisputable.

Rex, however, astutely notes that nowhere in the PR announcements about InfoWorld folding its print line did we or our parent compancy IDG ever, ever try to tout this as an environmentally-driven move. Yet his conclusion is that my article was an attempt at “retrofitting a green-reason for shutting down InfoWeek [sic].” (Again, he gently used a pseudonym, this time for the magazine, so as not to be personal.)

I don’t agree with Rex’s take on my motives for writing the article at all. I think if InfoWorld or our parent company, IDG, had wanted to add a big green spin to the move, they’d have left it to the coporate marketing team, rather than subtly injecting it in a single article written by the author of InfoWorld‘s Sustainable IT blog (i.e. me).

But more important, I think the leaders of IDG and InfoWorld are smart enough to know that savvy readers of the magazine simply wouldn’t be fooled were we to try to convince them that we were suddenly oh-so green because InfoWorld, just one of IDG’s print publications, is going online-only in the name of Mother Nature.

That all said, though, I do agree with what may be Rex’s underlying point: A lot of companies are attempting to apply a overly green spin to existing or new business practices, something I wrote about last week. So I can appreciate — and will exercise — some cynicism when a company trumpets itself as being suddenly “green,” just because, say, it’s offering a 3% more efficient power supply, or its packaging is now 27% less toxic.

But on the other hand, I would still encourage companies to highlight what they’re doing to reduce waste and increase energy efficiency. Sustainability is at the forefront of the minds of many a business leader; hence recent calls on the government to boost funding for alternative-energy research and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

And even those moves likely aren’t being made primarily in the name of keeping the grass green and the skies blue (or less brown in Los Angeles); companies are increasingly recognizing that emerging technologies and business strategies that require less hardware or less energy consumption or less paper are often, by their very nature, green.

That all said, though, companies should exercise some restraint in flying a green flag above each and every announcement they make, because plenty of analysts and media critics are watching, including me. And Rick Hammock.