Environmental two-step

Over the last year, the mainstream media has dramatically increased its emphasis on all things green.

Concerns about global climate change, soaring energy prices and increased government legislation are driving new priorities and expectations — from consumer products to corporate responsibility and sustainability plans.

To meet these new demands, companies around the world are scrambling to create products and technologies that address these concerns and to change the ways in which they are developed and manufactured. The profile of these issues has been raised by politicians but, ultimately, the responsibility for solving these big problems will fall on the shoulders of the world's scientists and engineers.

This challenge can be broken down into two basic steps — measure it and then fix it. Of the former, Linda Fisher, chief sustainability officer at DuPont said in this January's issue of

: 'We find that with energy and greenhouse gases if you start to measure, people reduce the usage. Measuring is not a simple task, but once a company has a proper baseline, it can see what can be changed.'