Kathy Mirch, of Lombardo Associates, of Newton Mass., talks about a system that removes nitrogen and phosphorus from groundwater.

The Providence Journal / Steve Szydlowski

Chemical companies have morphed into energy companies. Dupont saves by selling painting services, rather than paints to automakers. General Motors has eliminated all packaging at one of it assembly plants.

A green revolution is under way at corporations around the world, Joel Makower, chairman and executive editor of Greener World Media, told about 400 business people yesterday at the 2008 Green Technology Conference sponsored by Brown University at the Rhode Island Convention Center.

In just the last 120 days a leading manufacturer has produced a green cell phone that uses minimal energy when recharging, Makower said. Also, a major automaker has developed a production plant that produces zero waste, a line of green cleaning products has gone to market and another company converted its fleet of 1,000 trucks to bio-diesel.

Representatives of Whole Foods and Poland Springs described sweeping changes their companies have made recently to reduce energy use and improve profits.

Wal-Mart offered a custom-designed sustainability program to its 1.3 million employees that, among other positive outcomes such as improved morale and reduced carbon emissions, saves the company millions of dollars in health-care costs, according to the consultants who created the program.

Despite the rapid changes, several experts said yesterday there are still problems, shortcomings and confusion surrounding the green corporate revolution.

Makower said there are still no standards for what makes a company green. Activists don’t reward companies that do good. Wall Street still isn’t paying attention and the public doesn’t know who to believe.

Steve Hamburg, director of the Global Environment Program at Brown, challenged everyone at the conference to come up with one idea that would make money, reduce carbon emissions and lessen energy usage.

While big corporations are on the move, he said, many small businesses aren’t even beginning to think of how they can change.

“Businesses on Thayer Street [on the East Side of Providence] are using 20 to 30 percent more energy than they need to,” he said.

There also is not enough reliable information on what the most efficient businesses practices are, Hamburg said. For example, he said 2 billion pallets are used in the United States to help move products, and most people agree wooden pallets are incredibly wasteful. But nobody has figured out which alternative — plastic, cardboard or aluminum, is the best.

Makower said one General Motors plant found it saved $100,000 and earned an additional $50,000 every business day simply by switching from wood to cardboard pallets.

Some measures are turning out to be mistakes. Hamburg said, “Biofuels are a great example of getting it wrong.”

Robert Hildreth of Saatchi and Saatchi S, a global sustainability consulting firm, identified the source of the world’s current environmental problems — innovation has not progressed swiftly enough to meet the demands of the global population.

When Henry Ford rolled out the first Model T, he surely didn’t imagine manufacturing billions of them, he said.

“All these innovations were not invented with eight billion people in mind and now we are starting to see the design flaws,” Hildreth said. “We can innovate ourselves out of here.”

Streamlining design, transportation, packaging and disposal are all challenges for businesses of all sizes to confront, Hamburg said, not just the behemoths such as Wal-Mart, which can alter market forces by itself.

Businesses have to change their mind set, he said, to fit into the emerging “three economies” of dollars, carbon and energy.

Rhode Island is poised to take the lead in the future of green business, Hamburg said, given its size, compactness and access to leading technology and the personnel to carry new ideas all the way to the bottom line.

“We have lots of things going for us, but we have to figure out how to exploit that,” he said.

Robert Chew of Rhode Island-based SolarWrights has been trying to take advantage of energy-efficient business solutions for years, one photovoltaic solar array at a time.

A large part of the problem, he said, is that the state has not made installing solar energy an attractive investment.

“Lack of support from the energy office has been frustrating,” Chew said, adding cumbersome certification and building permit processes to the list of changes he’d like to see.

Across the border in Massachusetts, slow but promising progress is being made with Cape Wind, the largest offshore wind project in the United States.

Cape Wind Associates President Jim Gordon said the project is on track to be fully permitted by the end of the year and if all goes well, pumping energy to the grid by 2011.

“This has been a long and challenging road. We started in 2001 and just got our final Environmental Impact Report,” Gordon said. “We can become world leaders in offshore wind.”

Gordon also said Cape Wind is considering Rhode Island as the site to build the 130 or so turbines needed for the project.

Vendors at the conference offered services and goods designed to help businesses save money and reduce their energy use.

Ed Aldrich of Portsmouth represented the 1E company, selling software that can shut down a company’s computers at night and restart them in the morning. Companies using the software find they save $40 to $50 annually on each computer, Aldrich said.

The law firm of HinkleyAllenSnyder LLP, a lead sponsor of the conference, has lawyers specializing in green issues.

Kathy Loftus of Whole Foods Market, said various company stores have installed solar panels on their roofs, incorporated on-site wind energy or started heating with cooking oil.

Soon, she said, 60 employees from stores across the country will meet to discuss further carbon reductions.

Ronald Dyer, regional environmental manager for Poland Spring in Maine, said his company is a major part of Nestlé Waters, the largest marketer of drinking water in the country.

To save on plastic use, Dyer said the company has made its water bottles so light they are scarcely more than plastic bags. It produces all its bottles at its plants, to save on transportation costs — 160,000 truckloads annually.

The company is buying bigger tanker trucks and trucks that produce lower emissions. It is also experimenting with hydrogen fuel cells and natural gas powered forklifts.

Makower offered other examples of business innovation.

Dupont, he said, makes 8 or the 9 materials that comprise solar panels. Tyson, the chicken company, is making biodiesel with its millions of pounds of chicken fat. Coca Cola has found that its 10 million Coke machines are huge energy users, so it’s looking at new refrigeration technology.

“For the first time ever we have the opportunity to resurrect the way we do business,” said Makower. “This is the time to step up to the challenges. This is the time to go clean and green.”

ngarcia@projo.com