On May 16, the inaugural Green Business Summit, sponsored by the Boston Business Journal (BBJ), brought together executives, policy advocates, and investors to discuss how to build greener businesses. The BBJ should be applauded for encouraging companies to face the challenges presented by global warming and other environmental threats. As publisher Michael Olivieri has said:

We see green business practices growing as an increasingly important part of business life. It also represents an important growth industry in the area.

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One of the first socially responsible investment (SRI) screens excluded weapons suppliers from investors’ portfolios; today, however, publicly traded companies don’t just build weapons – they fight wars. Privatized Military Operations (PMO) have been integrated into American missions in Iraq, Afghanistan, and other less-visible theaters worldwide.

Researchers at the Industrial College of the Armed Forces have produced a fascinating in-depth review of PMO in modern warfare. The report, released in 2007, highlights the extent of PMO involvement in the Iraq war. For example, the ratio of private contract employees to American troops in Iraq is 1 to 1.5.

Private contractors now provide services that have traditionally been the responsibility of American soldiers. Some of these are support tasks, such as maintaining barracks and running kitchens. A more worrisome trend is PMO contractors’ performance of core combat functions: building overseas bases, maintaining weapons, and providing security details.

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