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With “green living” on the cover of many major magazines, “green collar” jobs and “green economy” being touted on business channels, and “green products” being demanded more and more from consumers, it is hard to ignore the need to understand more about this undeniable trend. What does this trend mean for your business - how can your business be affected and what should you know about it?
There are many opinions about what constitutes “being green” or “going green“ - but there are some very specific criteria that one can look at to determine how green one is or should be.
“Green” is a popular word that indicates practices that are environmentally friendly. It does not necessarily mean that such practices are actually sustainable. The word sustainable can be defined as simply this: providing for the needs of the current generation without compromising the ability of future generations to do so. What that would mean in practical terms is that we need to replace or replenish whatever resources we use, in order to ensure that future generations will have sufficient resources.
Some examples of “green business” vs. “sustainable business:“ A number of auto manufacturers are marketing hybrid vehicles now. Those vehicles may be considered “green” but the process of manufacturing, fueling and maintaining such vehicles (and what is done with them at the end of their product life cycle) is not fully sustainable. An example of a sustainable practice would be the use of bamboo for flooring instead of wood. Bamboo grows rapidly, is flexible, strong, and long lasting and can be replaced at the same rate it is used, thus one does not ever have to use resources one cannot replace. Other sustainability factors would be: is somebody’s drinking water being depleted to grow the bamboo? Are we cutting down jungles or forests for bamboo fields? How is it shipped and manufactured - are pollutants or toxic wastes a byproduct?
Thus, there are shades of “green” starting with being just a bit less harmful to the environment to practices that more substantially reduce one’s impact (or “footprint”) on the environment to practices that have no adverse impact (“zero footprint“) to practices that actually restore the environment, leaving future generations more opportunity and resources than what we have.
It is pretty clear why we would want to move toward genuine sustainability, but how do we do that? Is it even possible?
The good news is that not only is it possible, but it can and should be profitable.
The first thing to understand about being sustainable is that it is far more efficient than operating in an unsustainable fashion. There is a certain amount of energy that goes into any system, and if you waste that energy, it is just like throwing away money, ultimately. Sustainable practices focus on harnessing and saving energy and eliminating waste.
The ultimate sustainable system is an ecosystem. A mature forest can last for hundreds of years. That is because there is a balance of elements, and nothing is wasted. There is a design science called “permaculture” (meaning “permanent culture”) which mimics natural systems in order to increase yields without overusing resources. The functions and environment of a business can be designed or modified using these principles, to increase productivity and eliminate waste, thus increasing profit margins.
In a natural ecosystem, nothing is wasted. Every single item in that system, dead or alive, is useful or even essential to one or more other items in that system. Every microbe has a use, every dead leaf, every bird and animal usually serves multiple functions in the system. For instance, birds spread seeds through their eating habits, provide fertilization for plants through their elimination process, keep the insect population in balance (protecting plants from insect pests in some cases), provide food for predators, act as a warning system for other animals and a host of other functions. This multilayered interaction makes the system very efficient and it yields a tremendous amount of energy and production with no other external input but sunlight and rainwater. Most businesses think in terms of needing large amounts of energy piped into their system in the form of electricity and gas, water, office supplies, personnel, raw materials, manufactured materials, etc, etc. In addition, most businesses throw away a fair percentage of the material that comes in the door in the form of packaging, used office supplies, chemical byproducts of manufacturing, fuel waste, water waste, etc.
What if a business could operate like an ecosystem, and use every piece of material or energy that comes into it with maximum efficiency? Like a mature forest, such a business would be much more sustainable, regardless of what was happening with the economy. There are a number of ways this can be done on a gradient in an existing business that can save money or increase profits.
The first step would be to discover what energy is coming into the system, and what is leaving the system. One can make a note of all the inputs - everything that comes in, which would include goods, services, employees, energy, etc - and outputs - everything that leaves your business, including services, goods, waste, energy, etc.
Once you know what those are, you can start looking for areas where energy is not being fully utilized or where there is waste. Sometimes these things are not so obvious, and sometimes it takes some creative thinking to solve the problem. But harnessing energy and eliminating waste is a sure fire way of reducing costs and it often is simple and inexpensive - in fact, sometimes you can even make money from it.
For instance, most of us pay for trash disposal. But some restaurants and grocery stores are now saving their food wastes, composting and selling them. Some businesses are selling their cardboard, glass or aluminum wastes to recycling plants. A simple exercise would be to inventory what you throw away and see if any of it can readily be collected and sold to someone else, instead of paying to throw it in a landfill. Recycling has become big business. There are companies that recycle everything from building materials to computers to ink to metal, etc. Some of them offer tax deductions, some offer to pay for your “trash”, some simply take it away for free when you would otherwise have to pay to have it disposed of.
Another form of waste is chemicals. Sometimes, there are ways to collect and recycle these chemicals that are more cost effective than paying for toxic disposal. One potentially cost saving handling for chemicals is the use of microbes, which can neutralize them and eliminate the toxins. Some microbe companies can tailor microbes to your specific needs. They are self-perpetuating and you do not have to continue to buy new product to reap the benefits of them.
One thing most people don’t consider to be a form of “waste” is rainwater. But almost every business pipes water in from some outside location and pays for it, and almost every property uses gutters and other methods to ensure that their free water supply of rain gets washed right off the property, into the sewers and ultimately out to the ocean. There are simple, inexpensive rainwater catchment and storage methods that can easily provide water for a variety of industrial or commercial uses. On the “output” end of things, there are a variety of inexpensive plumbing solutions to save water, which pay for themselves in a matter of months in some cases. One permaculture principle is “keep the energy and resources in the system as long as possible.“ Thus, water used in sinks might be recycled and reused to wash pavement or gutters, or used in a “graywater” system to water foliage on the property. As the demand for and cost of water increases, water saving and storage methods have become more and more attractive economically.
Another form of free energy that people sometimes forget about is the sun. Often, the sun, a tremendous source of energy, is not only unutilized, but it beats down on black rooftops or into windows which can increase cooling needs. There are roof rainwater catchment systems, including green (living) roofs, that not only protect the building from heat gain from the sun, but also catch water at the same time. Some systems combine passive or active solar heating elements with water catchment or cooling elements in building design. Another principle of permaculture design is to ensure that every element performs multiple functions, like the example of birds in an ecosystem. Energy saving or catchment designs or devices that perform two or more functions can become extremely cost effective.
If you are retrofitting or building a new structure, sustainable building techniques can help reduce heating and cooling costs substantially. Building design that incorporates heating and cooling features in the design elements can be simple and create very pleasant working environments. The correct type of window shade can often lower cooling and heating costs substantially. A simple, inexpensive thermal chimney venting system is an effective passive cooling solution that can easily be installed in almost any existing building. Well placed masonry in the design can provide passive heating in the winter and passive cooling in the summer. It is sometimes considered that redesigning an existing building to be more energy efficient is too cost prohibitive, but there are a number of inexpensive and relatively unobtrusive changes one can make to an existing building that can more than pay for themselves in a short time with energy savings. In addition, new products are in the pipeline that can make installing renewable energy, such as solar or wind energy, as inexpensive - and in the long run - less expensive, than traditional energy.
If your company produces a product, ensuring that it is manufactured from renewable and organic resources can increase the value for consumers. For instance, many consumers are demonstrably willing to pay more for organic food and clothing and they go out of their way to purchase such products. There are a number of government incentives available to help businesses transition to more sustainable practices or create “green” products, which we will cover in future articles.
To sum up, to understand how sustainable you are, and to use a few basic permaculture principles to increase your yields and your sustainability, or “green” quotient:
1. Document all energy and resources that come into your business and leave your business.
2. Look for ways you can keep the energy in the system and reuse it, where possible.
3. Research ways you can get anything that leaves the system in the form of “waste” utilized by someone else and traded for some sort of value.
4. Think of ways that each aspect of the business can perform multiple functions, for greater yield.
5. Find ways to use renewable energies and resources wherever possible, such as sunlight, so that you and future generations will have a continued supply.
We have heard the terms reduce, reuse, recycle many times, but not necessarily in context of how this can increase profits and yield for your business. These activities absolutely can and should do so.
This is a simple introduction to the question “What is Going Green?“ There is much more to the subject of permaculture design, and there are many more things that businesses can do to be more green and move toward true sustainability, and make and save money doing so which will be covered in future articles.
Finding ways to make your company more “green” can not only give you the personal satisfaction of knowing you are contributing to the well being of future generations, but it can also make your company more financially sustainable in the short run.
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Green Leadership Consortium is a non-profit organization dedicated to helping business and community work together to become more sustainable and flourish in the process. We offer a number of education and counseling services to assist with this process, as well as an expanding data base of resources on our web site.
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