Can Lean Be Green? Interview with Keivan Zokaei

Michael Sinocchi interviewed Keivan Zokaei about his book, Creating a Lean and Green Business System” in a blog article from May 2013. Keivan was headed to the IIE Annual Conference in Puerto Rico to give a presentation and hold a book signing.

He asked him “why should companies bother incorporating sustainability and ‘green’ aspects into their Lean initiatives?”

Keivan shared his thoughts that Lean and Green is not about the planet, but about profits, which is a bit surprising, but it makes a lot of sense. Large corporations are realizing that environmental and economic footprints are aligned. He shares some statistics from Unilever, General Electric, Toyota and DuPont.

Today, the “greening industry” movement stands where the “quality movement” stood around 40 years ago. During the past 30 to 40 years, industries realized better quality can be (and often is) cheaper to make. By the same token, going “lean and green” is free – and in fact much cheaper.

You can read the original blog from at https://leaninsider.blogspot.com/2013/05/can-lean-be-green.html