Angles Of Reflection

A green plant is, ideally, one that is healthy and thriving, taking in just enough resources to survive and grow.  It has the flexibility and means to maximize its useful production in a way that is neither wasteful nor unsustainable.  If that description sounds like the opposite of a typical for-profit corporation, then read the last two sentences again with the phrase “green plant” replaced by “green business”.  The key linking the two is efficiency and the outcomes can be both…

Green and Profitable

The idea that profitability and environmental responsibility are complimentary rather than contrary concepts may not be exactly intuitive.  Profit is often perceived to come at the expense of the environment or, at least, to be made with little regard for any environmental impact.  Environmental responsibility, on the other hand, has a way of evoking a sense that some restrictive sacrifices will be required without anything being added to the bottom line.

It is possible to chase both goals simultaneously, however, by focusing on the pursuit of efficiency.  This will place value on the exploitation of resources in the sense that they must be used wisely.  Sacrifices will be necessary but the primary target will be mere waste.  An efficient operation is bound by its very nature to trend towards profitability and to have at least a tinge of green.

By now, green initiatives are widespread enough that adopting some sort of environmental policy is an almost obligatory way to keep up with the competition.  At the same time, a little ingenuity can help a business surpass the baseline responsibilities and give them a competitive edge.  Taking the first step towards turning a business green can be intimidating, especially if it is not clear where to start or where to end up.

Pick the Low Hanging Fruit

A great starting point is to just take a good look around and try to identify the most obvious ways that some kind of efficiency improvement could be made.  Are there things being thrown away that could be reused or recycled?  Is paper circulating for tasks that could be done electronically?  Would alternative energy be a viable option for all or some of the organization?

By identifying and then answering these sorts of questions, you not only begin the process of working more efficiently but you also start to look at your surroundings in a different way.  Minor issues that have received temporary patches and workarounds will begin to reveal themselves as prime opportunities to take decisive action and to make permanent solutions. 

Furthermore, conditioning yourself to track these micro changes on a macro scale is a valuable skill.   It can be difficult to appreciate the benefit of fixing something in a way that will save a tiny amount of money periodically unless discussed in terms of months and years.  By becoming accustomed to taking this longer view, better long-term decisions will follow more easily.

As an example, when we added outdoor lighting to our parking lot, we made the decision to use a system that would prove to be rather efficient.  Some time later, while looking for the low hanging fruit that could be improved, we found that the light fixtures were efficient enough that an upgrade was not necessary.  By making a good decision early on, energy consumption has been lower than it would have been since the beginning and the cost of upgrading was completely circumvented.  This is a benefit for our desire to be green by virtue of the lower energy use and by making the discarding of equipment unnecessary.  As far as the bottom line is concerned, energy unused and bulbs not purchased are both expenses avoided.

Establish a Committee

Once the easiest problems are on their way to being solved, the remaining tasks tend to get a bit more difficult to find and address.  Even the most well-meaning and self-motivated people in the world can find themselves overwhelmed and unsure of what to do next when working on a big project alone.  Aside from the possibility of dead ends and overwork, just taking on a job’s regular responsibilities can make it difficult to see beyond one’s own desk into other departments.  In a large enough organization, that means there can be enormous areas of the business that remain largely obscure.  For a company-wide project to really progress, a group of company-wide representatives would certainly help.

This is why a committee is an important part of this sort of project.  Organizing will make it easier to see what needs to be done because there will be that many more eyes at work.  A committee can also be a great source of accountability.  Going green is a lot like making a New Year’s resolution: the more people who know about it, the harder it is to give up early.

Our committee turned up an efficiency issue that would have been fairly difficult to tackle alone.  At the front of the Da-Lite campus is a water tower that has been a landmark in town for over fifty years.  Although there are numerous valid reasons for a manufacturing facility to have a water tower, we had exhausted virtually all of them and were left with a monument to old inefficiencies.

What really made the tower stand out as an obvious problem was the fact that it required the heat to be turned on earlier in the year than any other part of the facility.  Our winters tend to be fairly cold, so while we may not find it practical or advisable to eliminate artificial heating entirely, it is good to limit its use whenever possible.  Of course, being something of a landmark, we did not feel that it was a good idea to do away with the tower entirely. 

Today, the tower is still standing right where it was in the ‘50s without any change that would be obvious just by looking at it.  Inside, however, it has been completely and permanently drained for the first time since it was built.  This has allowed us to delay running the heat until later in the year and, over time, that amounts to a significant savings.

This serves as another good example of how an efficiency decision can have multiple benefits but the real point of this case is to show that it is possible to eliminate a problem without needing to eliminate the place where the problem resides.  Waste is the real target for elimination and it can be done in such a way that preserves the waste producer, should it happen to have some intangible value.


Learn the Standards

Once the easy fixes have been made and there is a committee organized to watch the place, the next big step is to look outward for help.  There is already an impressive body of work that outlines what businesses of any size or purpose can do to improve themselves.  The ISO, EPA, LEED, STEP and any number of local or regional equivalents have guides that run from general to specific to make it easier to know what to do and how to do it.

Besides the internal benefits that conforming to an external standard can bring, what is particularly excellent is that doing so usually yields a visible acknowledgement that everyone can see.  Being able to add LEED to the end of your name, or ISO 14001 Compliant to your company profile helps consumers know that they are supporting efficient companies rather than wasteful ones.  The more you can do to improve your company by working with these organizations, the more attractive your marketing can become. 


Continue to Grow

The logical limit to efficiency improvement is probably when zero labor produces infinite product or work with zero waste.  Assuming that this goal will remain out of immediate reach for the foreseeable future, it should be safe to say that there is always something more to be done.  This is where your internal committee and the outside organizations become very important. 

This is an exciting time for green.  There is enough already accomplished that the concept is immediately useful for a newcomer while still new enough to benefit immensely from refinements and additions to it.  Information sharing is an important part of growing as a green company.  The odds of your business being exactly the same as any other are fairly low but there is bound to be enough overlap that sharing your challenges and successes can serve as a valuable contribution.


Reap the Benefits

The bottom line for all of this is, well, the literal bottom line.  When the goal to improve efficiency is being met – when more is being done with less – the usual outcome is a more profitable operation.  Add in the bonus marketing opportunities and the fact that customers are growing to expect some evidence of green in what they buy and it really makes good business sense to be environmentally conscious, even if under the guise of pure efficiency.

The most achievable and justifiable path to take is not to give up what you are doing but to give up the wasteful part of what you are doing.  The goal is to minimize the negative impact your business makes on its own environment – your financial environment, labor environment and the other spheres that affect you and are influenced by you.  A common byproduct of doing so is a better global environment.


-- Adam Teevan
    ateevan@da-lite.com

I owe special thanks to Rich Lundin, Kris Barone, LEED® AP, Rhen Taylor, CTS, and Rachael Conley, CSCP, CTS, from whom the content of this article has been 95% recycled.

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