There is definitely room in the fitness industry for “going green.” The major challenges the health and fitness industry is facing today include but are not limited to the obvious financial crisis of the economic recession that we are all feeling, not to mention the excessive competition between all supplement manufactures / brands.

The term “going green” is not something that should be used lightly. It is not just about cardboard and plastic and recycling, it’s much much more and much bigger than that. Going green is about reducing the negative impact we put on the earth and all of its resources. Going green in the fitness industry should go further than just supplement companies, and include gym facilities and workout equipment manufacturers.

Gym’s around the world have already jumped on the “green” bandwagon and are going “green” inside their fitness facilities. Recently a Les Mills Gym chain in New Zealand have installed intelligent lighting controls with smart sensors that switch off lights when there is sufficient daylight or areas are unoccupied. They have also changed to water efficient shower heads, faucets, and toilets, thus reducing their water consumption; they have also replaced outdated and inefficient hot water systems with new high efficiency boilers. These gyms have also started a recycling plan to use environmentally materials in the construction of future building works.

Philip Mills the chairman and founder of Les Mills International spoke about going green and even went as far as saying we should “green our bodies”, stating that we could substantially reduce healthcare cost if more people exercised everyday and ate nutritiously.

Les Mills is not the only gym doing its part in preserving our environment, gyms around the world are all making efforts to reduce their negative impact and energy waste on the earth.

Cybex, one of the largest fitness equipment manufactures is also going green. I’m positive you have seen some of their fitness equipment at your local gym. They have built a state of the art electrostatic painting system that uses energy efficient motors and keeps painting proportionally distributed; they have also implemented a water recycling system that re-uses water over and over to reduce water waste. By doing this they have drastically lowered their mercury pollution and greenhouse gases.

Gyms, fitness equipment manufacturers, and vitamin and supplement manufacturers can do many many easy things to help our environment. Which include but are not limited to;

1. Replacing light bulbs with fluorescent light bulbs or light emitting diodes and turning off lights and other devices when they are not being used.
2. Having more windows in their businesses and using more natural light.
3. Putting heavy insulation in buildings to lower cooling and heating costs.
4. Planting more plants and trees outside their buildings.
5. Buying recycled paper, sending out documents to staff in emails instead of paper letters.

The supplement manufacturing industry should implement all of these energy conservation tips to their factories. By simply using recycled plastic, paper, and cardboard for the packaging of all their products they would drastically reduce their carbon footprint on earth. I don’t think supplement formulas should be compromised just because Muscletech’s Nano Vapor is in bigger packaging than USP Labs – Jack3d. But they could begin to replace synthetic ingredients with organic or natural ones, that are a lot better for my body and for the earth.

Now Foods for example has tons of organic vitamins and supplements. Which is a hundred times better for my body and will probably produce better results in the long run and still manage to have some of the lowest prices around for their vitamins and supplements.

So, as far as paying more for supplements made with “green packaging, energy and technology” – I don’t think that during this economy would be the right time to increase prices of the supplements we buy everyday. Going green might come at a high expense initially to these companies, but they will save thousands of dollars in the long run on energy and water conservation alone. So I would expect somewhat lower prices for their products. Its not true that everything made from green technology needs to be more expensive.