In his day job, Russell Ciliento oversees vaccine production as a biochemist at Wyeth Pharmaceuticals in Sanford, about 45 minutes south of Raleigh. In addition to his primary duties for the multinational drug company, Ciliento performs a vital function: driving a van to and from work every day, chauffeuring 13 Wyeth employees on a 52-mile round trip from Apex.

Far from an onerous duty, driving the van is coveted more than a corner office.

Ciliento is one of 11 Wyeth workers who double as van drivers for the company, some traveling 92 miles a day to ferry employees from the Triangle and Southern Pines. A quick calculation shows that the 11 vans take 175 cars off North Carolina's roads during rush hour, saving more than 175,000 gallons of gas a year.

The drug company plans to add three vans this year to meet employee demand.

"It's an incredibly huge perk," said Ciliento, who as a van driver rides for free. "I've saved probably about $12,000 in 3 1/2 years."

The commuter vans demonstrate a key motive for creating a green workplace: keeping employees happy. The van service didn't start out as a mission to save the environment or fight global warming, even though it's now promoted that way.

In a health-care hub with many job opportunities, Wyeth began subsidizing the vans four years ago to prevent employee defections to jobs that have shorter commutes.

It demonstrates that the green workplace is no longer a curiosity, an experiment or a costly social statement.

Businesses are promoting green policies to motivate employees, attract customers, and increasingly to save money as electricity and fuel costs go up. In the Triangle and beyond, companies are recycling waste, turning out lights at night, installing compact fluorescent bulbs, low-flow faucets and waterless urinals, offering telecommuting options and filling tanks with biofuels.

Responses to this year's The News & Observer Green Office contest show businesses know that environment-friendly strategies help the bottom line. That shift is corroborated by businesses that have long used such policies as a selling point.

Raleigh printing company Barefoot Press has used soy-based inks and recycled paper for 21 years. For most of its existence, making a moral case for slightly discolored paper was a liability.

But things are changing because of Al Gore's documentary, "An Inconvenient Truth," high oil costs and a general awareness of global warming, said Barefoot's president and founder, Rich Kilby.

"Now I think we gain business that way," Kilby said. "There's an awful lot of interest in it right now."

Going even greener

Green labels and certifications are very much in vogue. So much so that some skeptics accuse businesses of "greenwashing" their environmental record with exaggerated or false claims. Still, as conventional businesses go green, green businesses are forced to go greener to stand out.

Green Planet Catering in Raleigh is trying to move beyond organic produce and recycled packaging. The company wants to become totally self-sustaining by processing vegetable oil into biodiesel fuel for its delivery truck.

To generate enough fuel for 300 to 400 miles of deliveries a week, it collects waste oil from restaurants in town. At about 69 cents a gallon, reprocessed vegetable oil is much cheaper than diesel, which cost $4.89 last week, company managing partner Daniel Whittaker said.

"It saves a ton of of money," he said. "The whole business is based on a green model."

But the savings aren't always immediate and sometimes difficult to quantify. Businesses may not need to justify every executive perk for the top brass, but managers always must justify discretionary spending when the return on investment is not self-evident.

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