The true measure of being green is deceptively simple: Efficiency.  But many of the efforts made to create a green society inadvertently drive their own forms of waste.  For example, although green energy (like solar and wind) provide an ever growing portion of our electrical needs, there still needs to be some deterministic on-demand power generation to keep the system stable.

As more governments are reducing their traditional generation capacity or subcontracting to other municipalities at some distance away (as though pollution created on the other size of a political line on a map does not count), this creates new waste in power line loss and increased reliance on expensive on-demand.  Although roof based solar and other localized green generation are providing a growing amount of our power requirements, for the times when those methods do not meet demand there is little choice but costly on-demand generation.

But if going green should result in higher efficiency, and if being efficient should result in a net savings of resources or money, there should be an obvious and measurable benefit to an organized effort to being efficient.