10 Way to help your company go green.

Companies are going green. Sesame Street the most watched children show "gets it". Here is a list of ten ways you can apply it to your environmentally conscious business. This is a four part series of tips taken from the green people at *Direct energy. The Elmo goes green video available from Amazon online helps kids start to think about the environment from an important learning age.


1. Why Greening Your Organization Should be a Priority
Many organizations are developing strategies to green their organization as they recognize the importance that businesses must act on global warming and other environmental issues. Over the past 12 months, executives have come to regard the environment as the sociopolitical issue that will attract the most attention from the public and politicians over the next five years.

In the face of widespread media coverage and public interest, businesses can no longer ignore the concerns, risks and potential opportunities associated with climate change. 

Climate Change is no longer a fringe concern in the world of business and finance but part of the focus of strategic deliberation and decision-making by executives and investors around the globe. With this said, Direct Energy Consulting has outlined key strategies and tips for organizations to build awareness and consciousness of strategies of how to best manage and adapt to it.

2. Approach Greening as an Opportunity
Many people believe that the business opportunity presented by “Greening” is - in many respects – equivalent to the innovations enabled by the Internet. The Internet’s evolution has created immense value from business models which barely ten years ago were utterly inconceivable. Many believe “Greening” to offer opportunities on an even larger scale. Many organizations integrate their greening strategies with their overall competitive strategy, assessing market opportunities and developing services and products that will meet a carbon constrained world.

3. View Greening as a Journey
We believe that the “greening” of an organization should be viewed more as a journey than an end-state. This journey has prompted many of the organizations with which Direct Energy works to radically alter their business models or consider strategic options which may have been taboo until now. It is also about taking a fresh look at your organization.

As such, we advise organizations to ready themselves for a further, extended period of radical change, which will see many of those who take action, become leaders in the market.

4. Timing is Everything
For many organizations, it is not whether to take action, but when. The key to success is in timing the various components of a strategy.

5. Taking the First Step
Many organizations with which Direct Energy Consulting works know that they have to green their organization but unsure where to start. For those who have started, they are unsure how to follow through. Direct Energy recommends starting by building a comprehensive climate change strategy. This includes development of a plan, compilation of the organization’s carbon footprint and implementation of carbon reduction activities.

6. Understand Your Environmental Impact
Understand how your business affects the environment, from the things you buy to your relationships with customers and suppliers, to the full life-cycle of your products and services. At each step of the way, there are opportunities to make choices that can help you align environmental responsibility with business success.

7. Establish Appropriate Levels of Commitment
Many organizations are unsure how aggressively they should pursue their greening strategy. Direct Energy advises our clients not to get too far ahead of the rest of the business community. The uncertainty of the regulatory and policy requirements have many organizations not taking aggressive action until there are clear market requirements. Many organizations chose to identify activities that produce immediate benefits as well as address the socially and ethically based argument for “doing the right thing”.

8. Lead from the Top
An individual executive can play a crucial role in driving the level of green commitment and innovation within an organization. A strong individual who truly believes in the initiative can have a profound effect on the culture inside an organization. Outside of the organization, the credibility conferred by demonstrating a green commitment carries a critical amount of weight with peers and among governments and other organizations.

9. Every Business Context Is Unique
One size doesn't fit all, even within the same field of business. Ongoing analysis and audits of your operations is important. We recommend starting with the things that will affect people's attitudes and perceptions most, and things that will have some measurable impact on the energy use and waste production of your operations.

10. Ensure Green Is Not another Fad
It is often a challenge to reconcile overall organizational goals with what’s happening at ground level, where such initiatives can sometimes be regarded as fads unlikely to have a lasting impact. A determined effort needs to be made to overcome that problem. Developing a systematic and integrated approach for corporate initiatives is a good way to address this issue.



*Info provided Direct Energy website.
This is one of a 4 part tips on going green blog