I didn't see anyone mentioning: alerting the competition.
Once a company has a proven and better solution, immediately has a competitive advantage over the rest in the industry. Why bother telling them how to get a 18% sustainable increase of your yield?
Try and take advantage as much and as far as you can, try to get far ahead, and enjoy the ride. And once the rest figure out what you've done, you have already matured and getting ready for leap #3 while they are still trying the leap #1.
"There are other reasons why manufacturers keep quiet about their sustainable practices. After 15 years of dedicated effort, a well-known car manufacturer reduced the amount of energy it took to make its cars by 75%: it can now make four cars using the same amount of energy it formerly took to make one. Evans was amazed when he discovered this while working with the manufacturer and asked if he could tell the world. It refused, not because the innovations were trade secrets, or because it risked losing a cost-saving competitive edge (due to cheap electricity prices, the cost saving amounted to less than 1%), but because the management was worried that to flag one area of innovation in the business for praise might attract unwanted attention to parts of its operation that were less sustainable, potentially sparking accusations of “green-washing”."
As an aside, it's funny how tiny these 'articles' are. I wonder to what extent cell phones have made people unlikely to read a anything more than a few paragraphs long.
It explicitly lists this as a point when providing examples of incorrect reasons "why industry is going green on the quiet."
> It refused, not because the innovations were trade secrets, or because it risked losing a cost-saving competitive edge (due to cheap electricity prices, the cost saving amounted to less than 1%)
* In a low margin business, 1% cost savings could easily be hugely increased profits. Toyota's profit is about 6% at the moment: changing to 7% would be significant. Many businesses have lower margins.
* "Less than 1%" is anywhere between 0% and 1%.
I would guess similar savings are being made by other manufacturers.
> It explicitly lists this as a point when providing examples of incorrect reasons "why industry is going green on the quiet."
> It refused, not because the innovations were trade secrets, or because it risked losing a cost-saving competitive edge (due to cheap electricity prices, the cost saving amounted to less than 1%)
Once a company has a proven and better solution, immediately has a competitive advantage over the rest in the industry. Why bother telling them how to get a 18% sustainable increase of your yield?
Try and take advantage as much and as far as you can, try to get far ahead, and enjoy the ride. And once the rest figure out what you've done, you have already matured and getting ready for leap #3 while they are still trying the leap #1.