Been cutting costs by greening the office? Thinking about how to reduce further, even when it is time to court Expo attendees or a ball room of potential investors? Shake it like a Polaroid Picture or Electric Slide on down the page for 9 tips (and reasons why) corporate offices and events are jumping to a green groove.
1 Internal Handouts: Use EcoFont for planning documents and other must print materials.This specially-designed font uses up to 20% less ink and it’s a free download. www.ecofont.eu
2 Get the Word Out: Display the Eco-Safe Merit Badge on web, blog and ecommerce pages to allow pages to be e-mailed or downloaded. www.ecosafe.com Use social and digital media like Twitter, FaceBook, and Youtube in higher ratios than print.Four out of five printed pages become trash. Stop the tree carnage by keeping it digital.
3 If You Must Print: Go green! Investigate the base material to be printed on looking for something recycled or natural, using low water to be produced, and has low to no toxic chemical waste. Investigate the ink. Veggie ink is best as it is 90%+ reclaimable and made from non-toxic sources. Ink that requires low water processing (used to get indoor and outdoor weathering capability) is the next best choice. Location, location, location… the further you have to ship it, the higher the transportation carbon foot print to get it to you. Ignore the myth green printing does not cost more.
4 Web Hosting: Use one of many web hosting services powered by wind or solar energy.Co-op America’s Green Pages lists green vendors. Hosting in-house? Checkout IBM’s Big Green project or contact your hardware provider. Consolidation and going green tips can reduce your IT energy consumption up to 40%.
5 Bags:When selling merchandise encourage buyers to bring their own (no cost) or provide reusable organic fiber bags or biodegradable bags (ad opportunity). Each year in the US we use 91 billion plastic bags and 10 billion paper bags. Plastic bags take 1,000 years to breakdown and paper bags populate landfills.
6 Drinkware and Food Containers:Use your own or rent and wash up with biodegradable dish soap. For big celebrations or if it's not that kinda party: If adult beverages are part of the appeal offer reusable cups made of recycled and recyclable plastic charging a fair price to attract the buyer who knows more than one drink is in their future. Use recycled paper (good) and biocompostable (best) food containers complimented by composting and recycling bins. Check out www.worldcentric.com for biodegrable plates, cups, bowls and utensils made from vegetable based polymers and not non-renewable petroleum. (Great idea for your cafeteria too.) In 2003 it is estimated that the U.S. trashed 64 billion paper and 73 billion Styrofoam and plastic cups and plates in to landfills. On average, hauling trash is more expensive to an organization than recycling or composting. Per person, the U.S. wastes 300 lbs of packing per year.
7 Parades: If your party parades, use biodiesel powered tractors and vehicles to keep good, clean, fuel fun moving.And what about all those plastic Mardi Gras beads? Last year Arc of United Way agencies of New Orleans began a bead recycling program. The agency provided jobs to disabled adults who collected, sorted, packaged and sold more than 64,000 pounds of Mardi Gras empowering the program.
8 Recycling Drives:If you pull a big crowd to your party, team up with a local recycler. Hold a drive for old/worn out cell phones, shoes, clothing, CDs, etc. As an act of charity or, for those items the recycler will pay a price, offset the ticket price to attract an even bigger crowd. Each year the U.S. throws away more than 82,000 football fields six feet deep in compacted garbage. Only about 32% of U.S. trash is recycled with estimates that an additional 30% is readily recyclable if Americans could make the shot into the recycling bin.
9 Remodeling, Expanding, Building: Go for green, renewable, and as close to local as possible sourced materials.Design and build for air quality and energy efficiency. According to a twenty year study, building green may cost $0-$5 more per square foot gaining you a net benefit of $50-$65 per square foot.
10 Walk the Talk: Walking the green talk can go a long way to leveraging your brand. Green efforts are something to shout about and are eargerly recieved by media and consumers as real news. Skip the fluff and the conventional and go for the green. Don't know the difference - hire a consultant to guide you.
Googleable: Who’s party is going green in a big way? Washington National’s Baseball Stadium, California Academy of Sciences museum, and Greensboro’s Proximity Hotel.
Make the most of your green groove at work. Green your choices and your sphere of suggestion by example, gentle education, and voting with your dollars when you shop.Change looks hard, and costly until you get your green groove on and experience the savings.
T'was five nights before Christmas and all through the house Creatures were stirring and rockin’ out. Santa’s cool def jam blared on the non-digital TV, As lights twinkled on our LED-lit, ecologically-forested, Christmas tree. I wrapping presents with recycled paper all a glee, Amazed by the next commercial announcing an ‘Eco TV.’ I am such a boob! I am! I ordered a flat, digital TV that now does not seem so glam. In the store the picture was all a glow. The holiday deals so wonderfully low. I never gave a thought, not one. Where would my old TV go when it was done? Into the trash full of mercury, plastic, and lead. Oh! Visions of tainted water and growing landfills dance in my head. But just at that moment a happy reprieve. I heard rain deer hooves and a “Ho, ho, ho” as I saw the red sleeve! Down the chimney he came in a flash. All rosy in red organic jeans and zip-up, organic, alpaca-wool hoodie to match. The jolly voice whispered, “you’re not a boob! You know what to do. First, things first, recycle that old tube. Save the environment repair, recycle, repurpose, reuse, While providing jobs for others and low cost electronics too. Then call up the store and cancel the mercury and lead. Get something still flat and glowing, but greener instead. Vote with your dollars; use your green voice! It’s conscious consumer pressure spurring companies to make a green choice.” “Thank you, thank you,” was all I could say As I thought, ‘why is he here on this day?’ “A test run for the new bamboo reins my dear,” he said with a wink. “And after, taking the gang for a “bio diesel,” organic, switch-grass drink.” Giving a smile, he pulled on his beard. Up the chimney he disappeared. Jumping in his post-consumer recycled aluminum sleigh, they flew out of sight. While departing he said “Green Christmas to all, and to all a good-night.” With a flip and a flutter a curious paper floated down to the hearth. Green TV Recycling and Green TV Buying, A Santa Guide it said with a flair of Elfish art. ~
Happy Holidays to all and to all a Happy Green New Year!
Kellee K. Sikes transitions organizations from single to triple bottom line success for people, profit, and the planet (P3). Reach her at ksikes at pioneer-technologies dot com or www.progressionary.com.
Commenting on Elizabeth Spiers post "Benefits of Buying Local?" A great blog post about "Exploding the myths, presumptions, and pretensions of the bullies."
Different models like buying local, Organic, Green, etc help organizations and individuals get at responsible principles more easily, but the onus is still on each of us to be asking alert and precise questions that provide answers and change.
In sharing the models and principals of socially responsible business and the conscious consumer, we ask organizations and individuals alike to consider Fair Trade principles when buying. When Fair Trade is not possible we suggest buying local in a context where you can talk with the retailer or producer who knows the provenance of the good or service.
By speaking with someone local connected to a short and/or transparent supply chain, a conscious consumer can determine if they are participating in a fair trade. In its essence a fair trade should reflect true cost providing a living wage (not a sweatshop or slave labor wage) to all who had a hand in producing the good. A true cost also reflects care for a factors of environmental sustainability. This is complicated. For many of us it will require an evolution in the way we select and consume goods.
Questions Conscious Consumers should ask:
1 Transparency and Accountability: is it possible for me to learn where the materials to make the good came from and who made, transported, distributed, and retails the good? Can I contact anyone of these organizations if I want to learn more?
2 Capacity Building: is this good helping to build the economies of where it is made and sold or is it holding those economies, workers, or consumers hostage in some way?
3 Payment of a Fair Price: is each person in the process of making and getting this good to me paid a fair price in the local context agreed through dialogue and participation?
4 Gender Equity: if women participate in this process, is women’s work is properly valued and rewarded?
5 Working Conditions: is each person in the process able to work in a safe and healthy working environment?
6 Child Labor: if children of working age are working, are the children’s well-being, security, educational requirements and need for play met?
7 The Environment: is each person in the process of making and getting this good to me using and encouraging better environmental practices and responsible methods of production?
8 Trade Relations: is each person in the process of making and getting this good to me being paid on time and able to learn what I am paying for the good as the end consumer if they choose to investigate?
-- Adapted from the IFAT Fair Trade Principles by PTC
If everyone began to participate in the conscious consumer movement by focusing on just one good each – would buying local be a focus? If everyone were being paid a fair trade wage, would buying local be a topic of discussion and concern? While you enjoy your next sip of coffee, in your favorite t-shirt and savor a nip of your favorite chocolate bar will it be at the expense of the chance for a happy and productive life for the grower, the habitat of an animal, or a school education for a child?
The conscious consumer (a consumer actively concerned about the environment and social justice) is one of the fastest growing consumer markets, remarkably gaining a foothold in almost every socio/economic demographic in the developed world.
Scuppies are a segment of the conscious consumer market. Self proclaimed Scuppie Chuck Failla defines the segment as:
SCUP•PIE /skәp•e/ n. Socially Conscious Upwardly-mobile Person
To learn more about this market segment, (so you can market to them,) and find interesting details like Scuppie Beliefs, The Scuppie Manifesto, and The Scuppie Handbook to be released later this year, visit Chuck Failla’s Scuppie web site.
If you have a Socially Responsible Business Tip to share, please do!
Before forming my own company , I had several life-altering business experiences while working for other firms. In Europe for four of nine years, my work took me to 29 countries over five continents. Often I flew solo as the consultant expert, but more often I flew in crowds, managing teams of five to 125 consultants.
Orienteering environments as a manager (and den mother) in foreign lands was a course in the human and business condition. As Dickens wrote, “it was the best of times and it was the worst of times” -- the benevolence of humanity astride the dregs of “let them eat cake” indifference. Cultural, political and environmentally-motivated chapters were dog-eared in my mind. Business and consulting practices spanned successful-and-sustainable to sleazy-and-illegal. The warp-speed and ever changing nature of the experience was thrilling, addictive, and chockfull of mental vertigo.
Eventually I returned to the U.S. The lure of a good peanut butter n' jelly sandwich and a permanent closet eventually out-weighed the lust for platinum waiting room cards. I returned determined to leverage the best of what I had experienced and work for transforming the worst I had seen. I wanted more for myself, for my work, for my consultants, for my clients, for humanity, and for the world.
When I formed Pioneer Technologies, I started out with a focus on honesty, ethics and integrity which quickly expanded to a commitment to striving for socially and environmentally responsible business. My research and work since my travels has led me to investigate, test, and implement many forms of responsible business. One practice in particular seems to offer the best of the responsible business models. Fair Trade.
I settled on Fair Trade as the model for my business and the coaching methodology for my clients because it reflects:
the benefits of collaboration over colonization found in For-Benefit (Fourth Sector) and Human Development models.
Currently Fair Trade is focused on trade from persons in developing nations to persons in developed nations. The International Fair Trade Association has established ten principles to guide fair trade transactions. We have found success using these principals with any project or organization striving for social and environmental responsibility, regardless of the location of their operations or supply chain.
Paraphrased Fair Trade principles:
Opportunities: Create opportunities for producers disadvantaged or marginalized by the conventional trading system.
Transparency and Accountability: Transparent management and commercial relations.
Hardcore executives and entrepreneurs often dismiss these principles sighting supply and demand, free market economy, share holder earnings, or other monetary-only bottom line measurements of success. This rhetoric comes from eyes that have not yet seen and ears that have not yet heard the label reading, publicly commenting hyper-growth of the conscious consumer movement. Even the corporate elite who don't grasp this moment's power buy biodegradable cleaning products, consider a new bamboo floor, and drive hybrids. In developed countries, anyone can become an eco-chic, justice-concerned trend setter for the mass consumer base.
When there are multiple forms of success to be had, why would you settle for just one? Stay tuned for upcoming posts where I'll explore the ten Fair Trade principals through practical applications, the conscious consumer movement, and their impact to monetary, human and environmental bottom lines.
Kellee K. Sikes transitions organizations from single to triple bottom line success for people, profit, and the planet (P3). Reach her at ksikes at pioneer-technologies dot com or www.progressionary.com.
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If you have a Socially Responsible Business Tip to share - please share them as a comment!
After years helping businesses become more profitable, I've found myself waist deep in helping businesses get onboard the social responsibility bandwagon. Too often, I find when I meet with them they confuse charitable giving for social responsibility.
There is a unique and quintessential distinction between charitable giving and action for justice, creating a social responsible business. Charity is important and necessary in an unjust world. Acts of mercy through charity provide a respite to an injustice. Acts of justice, work to create sustainable social responsibility, by seeking to get to the root of an injustice with a resolution that is equitable (not equal) for all to fix the injustice so there is no need for mercy/charity. We are a long way from a world without a need for charity. Both are necessary – knowing the difference can give you a leg up on becoming as socially responsible as possible as well as savvy with your charitable giving.
Here’s an example. Consider Fair Trade Sports, a sporting equipment manufacturing company who has chosen a social enterprise model as their operating model. A social enterprise operating model requires the core values and practices of the company to reflect a triple bottom line:
Bottom Line 1) A Social Responsible Mission – FTS has chosen to be a Fair Trade, Eco-certified company that donates all profits after taxes to children’s charities
Bottom Line 2) A Commitment to Socially Responsible Care for Employees, Suppliers, Vendors, Consumers, and the Environment – as a Fair Trade and Eco-certified company FTS is caring justly for all
Bottom Line 3) An Operating Model that Makes Money to Support bottom line one and two – no matter how you slice it FTS is a business and they must make money to keep their doors open and their lights on so they can sell product to support themselves, their supply chain, and their commitment to children’s charities
A well know sports ball maker and competitor of FTS may very well donate to charities, but that would not make them a socially responsible company. This competitor even stamps their sports balls with “child free labor,” however, they neglect to tell you that although there are no children in their factories, they pay their factory workers such a low wage that the factory worker’s children must go to work in other factories to help the family make enough money to survive. It is easy to hijack charitable giving for some PR mileage, but if you have a sweatshop in your supply chain are you socially responsible? If you are making your sports balls from PVC, which is toxic to our health and the environment, are you socially responsible.
Thankfully “make fast and cheap” is not the only viable way to do business.
FTS chooses to observe the 10 standards of Fair Trade, including paying fair wages in a local context to the workers in their supply chain. This results in a workforce that is justly paid and able to live a life of dignity and worth as contributing members of society, not recipients of charity. FTS also chooses to use only eco-friendly harvested rubber in their sporting equipment, allowing them to be good stewards to the environment, the habitats and people dependent on the sustainability of the rubber plant forests for a place to live and economic sustainability. Lastly, FTS choose to give their profits to children’s charities (much like the Newman’s Own model), because although they have a core value of operating with justice through social responsibility, they understand there is a need for aid, mercy, and education for those that are not able, ready, or illuminated on the principals of social responsibility.
Admittedly reaching the level of social responsibility that FTS and many other pioneers have carved out for themselves is challenging and not always easy. That is why I have started this blog – to share the theories, tips, and success stories of FTS and many others who are pioneering and illuminating the need for social responsibility in addition to charity.
