What is the use of an automobile that gets 100 miles to the gallon if it takes an enormous amount of energy and pollution to build it? Likewise, is it really so bad if a car isn't the most efficient to drive if it was efficiently made?

The perfect example of this: The German Commission on Technical Compliance (TÜV) gave its first environmental certificate to a car in 2005. Did it go to the Toyota Prius? Perhaps a Volkswagen BlueMotion-powered car? Nope. It went to the big luxury Mercedes-Benz S-Class, specifically for how environmentally friendly it is manufactured.

Green manufacturing counts.