EcoMonday: When does green make sense?

We've been turning this idea over in our heads: When an industry feels the need to go green, what is its biggest roadblock? What is its biggest impetus? The event planning industry is on the cusp of getting some green standards. APEX/ASTM is working hard to produce a set of standards that will cover everything from Audio/Visual to Food and Beverage. But hey, you say, it's 2011. In a time when everything from the car industry to the toy industry has environmental standards, why is the event planning industry just now getting around to this?
Part of it is the complicated nature of our business. And the other part is a question of whether the chicken comes before the egg: Is it the folks in our industry who have driven the need for a set of environmental standards? Or is it the leadership who's assessed and determined the need?
Either way, we're glad it's happening. But it does raise the question of how change really happens: Does it happen because our employees and the people behind our companies decide that CSR is critical to our company's health?
Or does corporate leadership need to step up and make it a point to lay down the rule?
We tend to think it's a mixture of both: If you don't give your employees ownership, or pride, in an idea or thought, then they'll never get behind it.
And if company leadership seems to be just following a trend for popularity's sake, well, that idea's not likely to go far either.
What are your favorite examples of trend-setting done right?