Feb 20 2008
Green is Cumulative
Going green doesn’t happen all at once. It’s a continuum. Every business, like every person, can do something that conserves, recycles, saves, and re-uses.
How does a company create sustainability in their organization? First, assess what’s going on, to identify areas for improvement. Start small, with a recycling program, or by creating employee incentives and rewards for using public transportation, or carpooling, or hybrid vehicles. Reduce power consumption where it can be done with relative ease. Start a program with IT to turn off or down computers and lights at night. Change the lightbulbs! Buy carbon offsets to mitigate things that are more difficult to control, like travel for salespeople.
When you’re ready to dig deeper, look into how emissions can be reduced, then measured and reported. Join the CCAR (California Climate Action Registry). Check out your county’s Green Certification program; most California counties have them or are developing them. If you have company vehicles, start specifying those that use hybrid technology or biofuels.
Not everything can be done at once, but as you move along the continuum, changes can be made further inside the company. Look at your supply chain and the partners in it; there are almost always ways that transportation and packaging can be improved. In manufacturing, opportunities abound: to get rid of materials that have toxins, to recycle more, to use technologies already in place to streamline processes. Product lifecycle management, ERP, and asset management software all can play a part in this without making sweeping changes to existing practices. Small changes, consistently practiced and added to, will cumulatively change an organization’s impact.
And, whatever you do–measure it! Set goals and targets and report on the progress to all the stakeholders.
At the greenest end of the continuum, sustainability is integrated into all the company’s work, from product design to buildings. That’s where we are headed. And as we walk the path that takes us there, each action is a valuable step along the way.