Green Your Work

Boost Your Bottom Line While Reducing Your Carbon Footprint

Kim Carlson

• Publisher: Adams Media
• Year: 2008
• Print ISBN: 9781598699050
• eBook ISBN: 9781440516047
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business General
• Index: Business

Today, many companies are flourishing by delivering high-quality products while pursuing policies that leave the world a cleaner, better place. Those policies can help retain customers, energize employees, and serve as brand-building tools. This book shows managers practical steps to make their companies environmentally responsible while staying profitable and efficient. Environmentalist and businesswoman Kim Carlson shows managers how to green company operations by moving to a paperless office, recycling at work, setting up employee carpools, developing eco-friendly packaging, using green building products, and more. She explains in detail topics ranging from green marketing to setting up a carbon footprint assessment for the company. With this book at their side, managers can turn green into profits.

Part I
Why Should I Care?Chapter 1

Irresistible Reasons to
Green Your Business

There are many rational reasons to green a business, but the reality is that most businesses and organizations don’t start greening based on rationality at all. They do it because “everyone else seems to be doing it, so we should too.” There’s nothing wrong with this line of thinking. It is as good of a reason as any to begin the process. Some would have us believe that only moral or altruistic reasons are good reasons to green. Nothing could be further from the truth. There are many reasons to go green, and none of them are bad.

The environmental community has been trying to figure out for years how to get organizations and individuals to embrace basic green behaviors like resource conservation and recycling. They have tried shaming us, taxing us, dangling cost savings, and educating us with a religious fervor, but for a long time nothing seemed to work. The majority of the population resisted doing what seemed rational and right. It was only recently that behaviorists figured out—in the wake of people adopting green behavior en masse— what was going on: peer behavior is what drives green behavior. An industry-leading company that begins to go green will inspire other businesses to do the same. It is herd mentality—most of us don’t want to be the first to adopt something new, but we don’t want to be the last either. We want to be safe and in the middle of the pack.

If you happen to be one of the first to explore green in your industry or market space and are moved to action by solid rational explanation in addition to a little guilt and money dangling, then read on. There is truly every reason in the world to pursue sustainability and absolutely no downside—unless fame, success, and fortune is a downside for you.

Money Reasons

The price of gasoline is high and increasing rapidly. Natural gas prices are increasing faster and higher than ever, climbing by more than 50 percent from May 2007 to May 2008. Water prices have, in some cases, doubled over the past decade, particularly in dry areas of the Southeast and Southwest. We are also being charged more for what goes down the drain and the water that runs off our property. A few decades ago, electricity was advertised as “penny cheap” so that we would be enticed to use more. Now it is “dollar expensive.” Even so, because we use so many electronic gadgets in our homes and offices, rates of use are still climbing.

There is no end in sight either to the demand for these resources or the speed at which their costs are escalating. It is simple economic theory—more and more people are chasing a shrinking limited supply of the earth’s resources. To put our consumption into a global perspective, in the United States we make up only 5 percent of the world’s population yet consume 25 percent of the world’s resources and create 40 percent of the world’s waste. In green jargon, we have a very large environmental footprint. Simple logic tells us that if we can reduce our resource use, it will cost us less. Additionally, if we can switch not only to resource-saving technologies but also to renewable resources, we can have an unlimited supply of what we need with more than enough to go around.

Currently, one of the ripest opportunities to save resources and money by going green is in energy-saving and renewable technologies. Because energy prices are escalating and energy-saving technologies have improved and become cheaper, payback periods (the number of years to recoup in savings the up-front money paid to upgrade) have been reduced to two to five years. As equipment costs come down while energy costs continue to rise, this payback period will only get smaller making it even more appealing to switch to energy-saving technologies. There are also financing packages available that fund energy improvements with payback terms based on the energy savings. Reducing energy use is a big green win; not only does it cut operating costs but it also proportionately reduces greenhouse gas emissions and air and water pollution from the power plants that supply the power.

Green improvements to an office or facility can also have a positive impact on other seemingly unrelated costs like insurance and liability claims. Insurance companies have begun looking for ways to give preferential treatment to buildings that are more sustainable. Premiums may be lowered because green buildings are built to last and tend to hold their value better with lower operating costs. Anyone in commercial real estate knows that reduced operating expenses will add to the net operating income and increase the building’s value. As for potential liability claims, it is only a matter of time before insurance companies recognize that these claims and their associated expenses will decrease with cleaner and greener operations and products.

Revenue Benefits

Being green can increase revenue for your business. In this day and age of heightened green awareness, customers expect green products and service options and will even pay more for them. In many mainstream consumer markets, a company that does not offer an environmentally preferable version may find itself out of the running with many consumers. In other industries, green is still considered a niche or a novelty. So if your firm is the first to go green, this can be a market differentiator, setting your offering apart from others and drawing customers. Either way, green can strengthen your revenue by making your offering stand out or by keeping the customers who expect it.

Carbon Trading

Carbon trading is another potential way to bolster revenue in the future for the green organization. A company can reduce its carbon footprint by switching to renewable energy technology that cuts down on carbon energy consumption and emissions. If the reduced emissions are under specific limits—yet to be established in the United States—companies could conceivably sell their surplus pollution capacity, called carbon credits, to a company that hasn’t been able to reduce its own carbon footprint. Until there is an official carbon trading market in the United States, it may be possible to sell carbon credits in Europe. Undoubtedly other resource-saving trading markets will develop over time to solve new challenges like water shortages. The organizations that have already started to plan for this new source of revenue by reducing resources will be in the best position to benefit from the developing trading markets when the time comes.

Green Staff

Another quantifiable bottom-line benefit of going green is the positive affect that greening has on staff in the organization. The U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) has statistics that show people who work in a green facility have as much as 24 percent increased job satisfaction. The USGBC also says that productivity of workers can rise by as much as 10 percent. For some labor intensive companies a 1 percent improvement in worker productivity is financially comparable to eliminating its entire energy bill. If that weren’t enough, when workers are happier and more productive that can also have a measurable effect on the bottom line by reducing absenteeism as much as 45 percent according to the USGBC.

Workplace Happiness Means Big Bucks

The issue of workplace happiness as it relates to the bottom line has become a hot topic because human capital is one of the largest expenses in organizations. The Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index (www.well-beingindex .com) released in April 2008 found that workers who are unhappy take as much as an extra fifteen sick days a year. That adds up to a total cost to U.S. business of $14 billion in wages each year. Elements of a negative work environment that can contribute include job dissatisfaction, lack of trust at work, and authoritative rather than collaborative leadership. Greening your business operation, including your people, policies, and procedures, can go a long way to rid your organization of these negative contributing factors and result in happier, more engaged employees. A green organization is based on collaboration, authenticity, and meaningful work.

Going green equals a qualified and engaged work force. Hiring is a fifty-fifty proposition; half the time it works out and half the time it doesn’t. People with green values are attracted to green companies, so employees are more likely to be a good fit when they know that your company’s mission involves the environment. Having a waiting list of people who want to work for you is invaluable and can reduce the time and expense that it takes to find and hire qualified employees.

The financial upshot of greening an organization is quickly becoming a must have for every business. It has become the fiscally responsible thing to do because it can increase revenue and decrease expenses. And that is what business is in the business of doing—maximizing profits for its shareholders. Greening eliminates waste, risk, and can create a happier workplace, making it possible to make or save real money translating into more profit. And we all know those green profits will be more important as resource costs increase. Green truly does mean green—money.

People Reasons

Businesses are made up of people doing their jobs so they can live happy and healthy lives. Protecting the good health of people in our organizations is also a convincing reason to go green. Since World War II, when the chemical industry began to replace natural solutions with petrochemicals, we have been living in a chemical stew. The National Cancer Institute announced in 2004 that a woman’s lifetime risk of breast cancer is now one in seven, double the one in fourteen lifetime risk in the 1960s.

Chemicals known as endocrine disrupters are found in many household products, pesticides, flame-retardants, and even personal care products. Though not at sufficiently high levels to cause cancer, these chemicals can interfere with the development of a fetus and cause issues with the health, intelligence, and future fertility of the baby. Possible problems caused by these chemicals include:

> Early puberty

> Imbalanced sex ratios

> Infertility

> Breast and testicular cancers

> Learning disabilities

> Behavior disorders

> Neurological conditions

Given the increase in incidents of these and other health issues, environmental health is fast becoming a growing area of study and concern. With time and technical advances, the chain of custody for cancer-causing chemicals will only grow. Imagine the resulting lawsuits against companies that put their employees or consumers knowingly or even innocently in harm’s way.

This prospect has caused a growing number of scientists, businesspeople, and environmental health experts to look at toxins in a new way: from a green business prospective. In the past—and often still today—scientists, government officials, and businesspeople tended to ask, “How much harm is allowable” when assessing the risk of a specific chemical that might be toxic. They spoke in terms of “allowable parts per million” when deciding if a toxic substance should be removed from a product. The reality is that consumers may not want any toxin in a product. When a business asks, “How little harm is possible?” the maker of the product rather than the consuming public bears the responsibility for ensuring the product is safe. A green business is proactive in preventing harm and protecting health.

Chemical pesticides, cleaning products, paints, and dyes are used in buildings and manufacturing processes around the world, with little regard for the resulting pollution and its effect on people inside or outside. Green alternatives and processes reduce or eliminate petrochemical products and effluents, resulting in a healthier work environment and cleaner air and water. Business has a newly anointed ethical responsibility to not put workers or consumers at risk for their health. Greening every aspect of an organization can significantly reduce those risks caused by human-made chemicals.

Employers and Employees

Many boardrooms around the globe are starting to discuss going green. No matter the size of the organization, executives are trying to figure out what they should do to make their organization greener. In most industries the peer pressure among executives has become a real turning point even if green efforts are still in the planning stages and on the down low. Employees who understand this and can help with greening their organization will have more opportunity for advancement as the executive team reaches out for help within its organizations.

Similarly, employees are beginning to expect green from their employers. A survey conducted in late 2007 by Adecco, a New York-based provider of work force solutions, found that more than half of the respondents thought their company should be doing more for the environment. Thirty-three percent of the employee respondents said that they would be more inclined to work for a company that is environmentally conscious.

There is also a whole new group of Generation Yers entering the work force who list the environment among the top three things that they are concerned about. In fact, people of all different age groups want more than pay from their work—they want meaningful work. Meaningful work is a reason to get up in the morning that transcends a paycheck. It means doing good things that help rather than harm the world. Greening your organization can provide meaningful work for those that are looking for it.

Good Neighbors

Being a good neighbor is another reason to throw caution to the wind and begin greening efforts. Every business is part of a community whether it chooses to recognize this fact or not. Each business decision, from hiring to what is done with your business’s waste, affects the community in which you operate. Green facilities have lower impacts on the communities because sustainability initiatives take into account fair treatment of all stakeholders. A company’s greening efforts, no matter where it is located in the world, will elicit a more favorable image when it is a positive force in its community instead of a passive and uncaring one. Parts of the world previously considered remote are no longer so because almost all workers have access to cell phones, and more and more are linked into the Internet. Companies can no longer hide poor treatment of workers. Word can easily get out if an operation is less than community or employee friendly.

While new laws and codes favor businesses that use green techniques in building, you can bet that tax incentives or special programs for businesses that use fewer resources and pollute less will soon follow. Governments around the world are moving in this direction, due to hot-button issues like global warming. The organizations poised to take action on these incentives now will be ready to reap the benefits when the time comes.

Planetary Reasons

Protecting the ecosystem seems like a selfless reason to green an organization. It’s self-serving too and rooted in something much more important than profit or even people—our survival. Protecting and preserving the ecosystem is connected to supporting our way of life, including commerce. To understand this, it is important to realize that we are encountering some of the most daunting challenges that humanity has ever faced. It will make pestilence, plague, and famine from biblical times seem like a cakewalk. Dwelling on environmental problems in order to frighten people is not productive, because people may feel too paralyzed to act. The problems may seem far too large for any one business or one person to cure. But we need to start somewhere, and to start we need to identify the issues to solve the issues. So the first issue we need to talk about is the increasing population.

In the 1920s the human population of the planet was about 2 billion. It took Homo sapiens 100,000–200,000 years to climb to that number. By 1960, just forty years later, the number of people had swelled to 3 billion—a billion more people on the planet. Around the year 2000, another forty years later, the population had doubled again to 6 billion human beings. By 2010 the population will be headed to 7 billion, with 9 to 10 billion expected by 2050. According to the World Bank and the United Nations in 2008, approximately one-fifth of the people on the planet are living in abject poverty, malnourished, and without clean drinking water. If there are not enough resources to feed, clothe, and shelter one and half billion people today, what will happen when there are 9 or 10 billion people on the planet? Simply stated, a frighteningly large number of human beings are chasing a limited quantity of resources.Tomorrow m...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Introduction Going Green to Make Green
• Part I. Why Should I Care?
• Part II: How Do I Care? The Office, Factory, or Warehouse
• Part III. How Do I Get Them to Care?
• Appendix A: Resources
• Appendix B: Checklists and Surveys