There are plenty of changes companies can make today that will help improve environmental sustainability as well as the bottom line, without resorting to new or untested technologies, and a new report highlights many of the moves companies can make to go green.

The New York-based Environmental Defense Fund checked some overlooked areas including recycling, transportation, and information technology, as well as insurance.

The non-profit group said it focused on processes that were good for business, good for the environment, ready to be implemented, and innovative, but it did not include ideas that are still in the research and development stage or technologies that have already been widely implemented or documented.

"You'd be awfully surprised to know which multi-national companies have approached us just in the last year to say we want to go green but we don't know how to do it," said David Yarnold, executive director of the Environmental Defense Fund, at a press conference in San Francisco.

Many of the company's profiled in the report fall well outside of the standard solar, wind, or CFL bulb changing efforts.

Palo Alto, Calif.-based Hewlett-Packard (NYSE: HPQ [1]) and Cisco Systems (Nasdaq: CSCO [2]) in San Jose, Calif., were noted for their video-teleconferencing systems, which the Environmental Defense Fund said have tremendous potential to decrease business travel.

The Environmental Defense Fund, or EDF, also pointed out the use of employee shuttles as a great energy saving system, with Mountain View, Calif.-based Google [3] (Nasdaq: GOOG [4]) and Yahoo (Nasdaq: YHOO [5]) in Sunnyvale, Calif., named as two companies that let their workers ride for free.

Take a look at Yahoo's ride here >> [6]

Another opportunity opening up for businesses is the ability to get green mortgages and green insurance.

EDF said that in addition to the environmental benefits and energy savings of building green, obtaining certification through the U.S. Green Building Council's LEED program could ultimately result in lower insurance premiums.

Charles Kavitsky, chairman of Novato, Calif.-based Fireman's Fund Insurance, said, "The element of green insurance is essentially enabling businesses and homeowners to upgrade their homes and buildings, do all the green features."

He said the coverage relates to the environmental friendliness of heating systems, the kind of windows that are used, and how clean the air is going to be.

"In essence, we have a discount for those that have already been like that with the ability of rebuilding them."

On the mortgaging side, EDF said Washington, D.C.'s Fannie Mae (NYSE: FNM [7]) has agreed to invest at least $100 million in location efficient mortgages in the greater metropolitan areas of Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Seattle.

Location efficient mortgages can give borrowers an incentive to buy properties in areas where they can walk to work or take public transportation.

Another idea for green buildings is the use of passive lighting and air conditioning.

EDF said one example, sun-tracking skylights, are cropping up in businesses across the U.S. The skylights use solar-powered GPS to follow the sun, maximizing the amount of natural light that can illuminate work places and minimizing electricity costs.

Solar tubes can also bring natural light through a dome on the roof and channel it down into interior office space through internal reflective tubing.

Passive heating and cooling can also regulate interior temperatures without air conditioners and boilers, according to EDF.

A night-flush vent system, which replaces hot daytime air with cool nighttime air, combined with state of the art roof and wall insulation, can make this possible.

Other passive measures include window glazing and reflective roof coatings.

For manufacturing, one system that EDF said could be "game-changing" is the use of closed-loop manufacturing.

Casey Sheahan, president and CEO of Reno, Nev.-based Patagonia, said the outdoor clothing, gear and accessories retailer plans for its entire apparel line to be 100 percent recycled or recyclable by 2010.

"This initiative, called the Common Threads Recycling Program, takes used and worn out Capilen, polyester, and Polartec fleece garments," he said.

Under the program, customers will be able to take their clothes back to recycling centers at the company's stores or at partner retail shops around the country, and the garments can be recycled into new polyester fiber.

Patagonia has estimated that production of the recycled fiber uses 76 percent less energy and produces 71 percent less CO2 emissions than production of virgin polyester.

"So essentially the garments that we wear on our backs today are the garments our children will wear on their backs tomorrow," said Sheahan.