Featured post by Lara Valentine from Green Habits

Today’s Alert Headline from CSR-Wire read “CSRwire Reports Top Corporate Social Responsibility News of 2007:Al Gore’s Nobel Peace Prize helps validate business case for addressing climate crisis”. The story highlights a report by Innovest Strategic Value Advisors that released a “Carbon Beta” study that gives strong evidence that connects the proactive actions of a corporation on climate change “with strong financial performance.” It goes on to say “Companies increasingly recognize that their responses to the climate crisis may well determine their fates, as demonstrated by the growing number of firms joining the US Carbon Action Partnership (USCAP), which calls on Congress to set a carbon cap.”

If I were a CEO and was considering the options of moving my company into the environmental-sustainability-age I’d be confused on how to move the ship around though. It is clear to me that making this change will have long term benefits however, there aren’t alot of books or actual authorities on “how” to do it. Befuddled comes to mind, with the lack of concrete options in front of me. Where would you start? You could hand pick a group of employees in your company to set up standards or write a plan but where would that get you? Does your staff have the capability to do this kind of work? Would they come up with a plan that includes out of the box thinking or would it be status quo?

I’ve given the answer a lot of thought and here’s what I’ve come up with. I would hire an independent consultant to give a macro overview of options. Before your business can begin to analyze the myriad of options before you, wouldn’t you want to know the universe? To plan first will save time and money. To plan first would help determine the budget, the type of staff who could be best utilized, areas of priority, and areas of least benefit.

The problem of bypassing a consultant is that your staff may be too ingrained in the “way it’s always been done” to see that simple solutions may be of tremendous benefit. To skip over a macro overview could mean that the company only concentrates on one area of change. A consultant of any caliber can analyze operations, facilities, product design, the fleet, the supply chain and the marketing. They can find the points of integration that make the most sense for the type of business. Does switching to an energy star Xerox machine make you a green company? What about just advertising your green product? The FTC doesn’t take kindly to eco advertising without any back up, nor do your customers.

So before you make any decisions, hire an expert to give you direction.
Green Habits can do an energy audit for starters, but the options go much deeper and the change more profound. Let us help to earn your business the reputation it deserves in this world of changing energy and environmental concerns. Check out www.greenhabitsaustin.com for more information.

Last week I wrote that I was going to start a series on how you can make your business green. While there are many social and political reasons to turn your business green, I’m going to start with the very basics. I’m going to cover the bigger concepts later in this series.

Today, I’m going to go over the first steps to begin to turn your business green. If you already implement these procedures in your business then you’re already one step ahead of the game. If you haven’t, then this is a good beginning.

1. Recycling

Yes, you have probably been doing this for years in your business already but there are still many businesses that do not have any sort of recycling program. This is the easiest step of all. Wherever there is a trash bin either add a bin for paper, a bin for plastic, and a bin for glass. Some spots might need each separate bin and others might only need the paper bin added. For example, if your business has a cafeteria area it would be wise to add each of the bins. The people in the cafeteria will probably have waste for paper, plastic, and glass. If it’s your own office, you probably only need another bin for paper. If you do have glass or plastic you can always take it to the cafeteria to deposit.

2. Fax machine

This is probably the biggest waster of paper in your company. The simplest solution is to use a web based fax product. For the most part, when you receive faxes it just gets filed some place as a record. You can keep these same records filed away on your computer as well. You can always print it off if you need to. Also, if you have one person who handles all the incoming faxes, they probably know which faxes should be printed off and assigned, most of the other faxes are probably junk. It would be easy for that person to simply delete the fax so it never needs to be printed out. Most software will allow you to send a cover letter and a fax via your computer as well, reducing the need to print out a file and prepare a cover letter to fax regularly.

3. Turn off your equipment

This takes a conscious effort with everyone involved in the company. When they go home at night or the weekend, if they turn off their computers and copy machines it can easily save 25%-50% of energy per day.

4. Make sure your faucets don’t drip

Even when turned off, some faucets still drip. Inspect any and all faucets you have in your bathrooms and cafeteria area. Make sure that when they are off, they do not drip. A faucet that drips once a second will waste over 2639 gallons per year.

5. Office furniture

Before you go out and buy some new office furniture, look into getting your old furniture refurbished (or buy refurbished office equipment). It’s less expensive than buying brand new and will help the environment.

The next posting will go into more ways to turn your business green that will require more involvement from a management perspective, the stratigies involved, and solutions to become a green business.

A weekly roundup of the best blog postings related to business issues:

How To Start a Business Blog, Part 8: Choose Categories at Michael Martine.

Seven Business Blogging Mistakes at Krishna De.

“Green” hotels please customers, boost profits at The Honolulu Advertiser.

Are All Customers Worth the Effort? at Unique World CEO Blog.

What Employees Want from Their Job at Suite101.

Luck and the Entrepreneur at blog.pmarca.com.

Tom Peters on Leadership at The Practice of Leadership.

How to Combine Social Networking and E-commerce at Dennis Plucinik.

Public Speaking: Time of Day Matters at Great Public Speaking.

Need Help Making Management Decisions? at Slacker Management.

It seems like when ever you open up a business magazine or watch a business show, they are talking about making your business green. Green this, green that. But what does it really mean to make your business green?

For the most part, it’s about business being environmental friendly and doing things that help the environment. Companies are finding less pollutant and cost effective ways to recycle their waste, they are setting up processes in their factories and manufacturing plants to create less harmful pollutants, and buying products and services from vendors who have turned their business green.

With environmentalist scaring people into thinking the world is going to end, it’s also created a new type of consumer who will only buy “green products”. Whether or not you agree or disagree with the effects businesses have on the environment, being “green” is the new trend and companies are changing their ways to accommodate these consumers. Not only does it show responsible management of your resources, but it demonstrates commitment to your social responsibilities as a business.

I am going to start a new series on all the different aspects of how you can make your business green, how to save money on energy costs, and how you can also profit from the same trend.

If there are any specific topics you would like me to discuss, please leave a comment or email me and I will work it into a story.