"More than just evaluating products, the mission of the workshop is to demonstrate how producing green can be a win-win strategy, increasing a company's profits while positively distinguishing it from the competition. Ottman and Doering offered some simple "swift approaches" to environmental design: Use recycled materials; increase energy efficiency and substitute alternative energy when possible; reduce toxicity by using "known" and stable compounds; extend product life, moving away from disposable products by creating goods that are durable, upgradeable, and repairable; and provide the product as a service or on a lease basis where the consumer keeps the product through its useful life, and the manufacturer reclaims it for disassembly or refurbishment."

"Daniel Cudzik's pop-top beverage-can tab was a case in point: Since 1980, the tabs—which remain attached to the can, eliminating the litter produced by detachable tops—have conserved over 200,000 metric tons of aluminum, 3 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity, and prevented the discharge of 900,000 pounds each of carbon monoxide and fine particulate matter, 20 million pounds of nitrogen oxides, 42 million pounds sulfur dioxide and over 6 billion pounds carbon dioxide."