With apologies to Kermit the Frog, it's a whole lot easier being green these days than it used to be. In industries from food service to manufacturing and everything in between, small and mid-sized companies are finding more reasons to adopt green initiatives of their own. The payoffs range from reduced costs and (potentially) increased profits to good PR and a boost to community goodwill. In some cases, no doubt, it's simply a matter of conscience on the business owner's part.

On a purely dollars-and-cents basis, oil prices flirting with $100 a barrel in late 2007 provided incentive enough for many companies to get serious about energy conservation. Higher oil prices have a ripple effect that tends to push up costs for other energy sources, including electricity.

Business owners are getting additional encouragement on the legislative front, such as that from the Renewable Energy and Energy Conservation Tax Act of 2007 passed by the House in August (and awaiting Senate action at press time). Among other things, the bill increases development loans to companies for projects designed to reduce energy consumption by at least 10% and authorizes grants up to $300,000 under the Small Business Sustainability Initiative to provide support to smaller and medium-sized businesses to improve environmental performance.

So far, giant companies, such as Wal-Mart, DuPont and BP, are getting most of the press in this area, and trend watchers such as Environmental Defense say that's helped push business, in general, past the tipping point when it comes to embracing green strategies. But make no mistake about it, going green is first and foremost a business decision for those companies. "We don't do things just to be good," Hewlett-Packard's Vice President for Social and Environmental Responsibility stressed in a recent presentation. "We do things that make business sense." It's easy for big companies to see benefits accrued from even small changes in energy usage, thanks to the economies of scale involved. The numbers may be less impressive on an individual basis for small and medium-sized companies collectively; however, the savings can add up quickly, since it is estimated that smaller companies consume more than half the commercial energy produced in the U.S.

Going green means different things in different industries, and various organizations have sprung up to help businesses take the plunge. For example, the U.S. Green Building Council (www.usgbc.org) provides research and guidelines for making buildings more environmentally friendly. The economic benefits include reduced operating costs, enhanced asset value and profits, improved employee productivity and satisfaction, and optimized life-cycle economic performance, the agency says. Companies in the food service industry can tap the Green Restaurant Association (www.dinegreen.com) for similar guidance, while IT companies can turn to the Green Grid (www.thegreengrid.org).