If being environmentally-conscious consistently saved (or better, generated) money, there'd be no challenge at all in convincing big companies to get a little greener.

Sun Microsystems, the pack of clever people that it is, has decided that maybe being environmentally-conscious can be profitable, not because the act of conserving energy and so on would outweigh the initial costs of re-engineering a few things, but because people want it.

It's a pretty simple idea:

If people want an eco-friendly product, they'll buy an eco-friendly product. If people buy an eco-friendly product, we, the smart people at Sun Microsystems, can make it profitable.

So Sun has just hired a guy to fill a position they've made up, a VP of eco-responsibility. Step one: spend money. Check.

Step two: make money.