Sustainability Tips for People-Based Companies
Are you aware of any resources/books that can help guide people-based companies (i.e. firms that don't produce products, own buildings, etc.) find ways to be more sustainable?
Are you aware of any resources/books that can help guide people-based companies (i.e. firms that don't produce products, own buildings, etc.) find ways to be more sustainable?
Gil: Even people-based companies have ecological footprints, of course, because even people-based businesses "use" (that is, "degrade") energy and "use" (that is, move and transform) materials. Each and every one of those actions has a resource demand and an environmental impact. And each offers an opportunity to generate equal or better results -- for customers, employees and shareholders -- while reducing those demands and impacts.
(It's kind of interesting that we would ever think otherwise: consider transportation of employees and customers; heating, cooling and lighting stores and workplaces; purchase of equipment and supplies; printing, copying and moving paper; preparing food; janitorial functions; dumping surprising quantities of "waste" to landfills; management, communications, and decision-making; and even good old recycling. Resource demanders and an environmental impacters, all.)
What to do? Or, as you ask, what to read? The only book we know of focused specifically on this subject is The Smart Office: Turning Your Business on its Head, which offers straightforward suggestions that apply to people-based companies as well as home offices.
But here are a few other favorites (including some old favorites) that should have plenty of useful ideas for you to work with.
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Got A Question?
Send your questions about environmental management issues to [email protected]
We can't guarantee that we'll answer every question, but we'll try.
Want more "Ask the Experts"? Visit our archive.
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Gil Friend, systems ecologist and business strategist, is president and CEO of Natural Logic, Inc. -- offering advisory services and tools that help companies and communities prosper by embedding the laws of nature at the heart of enterprise. Sign up online to receive his monthly column via email. Read Gil's blog here.
Gil: Even people-based companies have ecological footprints, of course, because even people-based businesses "use" (that is, "degrade") energy and "use" (that is, move and transform) materials. Each and every one of those actions has a resource demand and an environmental impact. And each offers an opportunity to generate equal or better results -- for customers, employees and shareholders -- while reducing those demands and impacts.
(It's kind of interesting that we would ever think otherwise: consider transportation of employees and customers; heating, cooling and lighting stores and workplaces; purchase of equipment and supplies; printing, copying and moving paper; preparing food; janitorial functions; dumping surprising quantities of "waste" to landfills; management, communications, and decision-making; and even good old recycling. Resource demanders and an environmental impacters, all.)
What to do? Or, as you ask, what to read? The only book we know of focused specifically on this subject is The Smart Office: Turning Your Business on its Head, which offers straightforward suggestions that apply to people-based companies as well as home offices.
But here are a few other favorites (including some old favorites) that should have plenty of useful ideas for you to work with.
- Lean and Green: Profit for Your Workplace and the Environment has examples from some 20 companies; most are manufacturers, but the examples include what they've done inn their office environments, which may not be that different from your office environment.
- Natural Capitalism : Creating the Next Industrial Revolution offers a refreshingly new vision for how industry can survive and thrive in the 21st century.
- Cause for Success: 10 Companies That Put Profit Second and Came in First provides detailed case studies, told from the inside perspective of CEOs, which clearly demonstrate how social responsibility can drastically improve corporate health, growth, and competitive edge.
- Cleaning for Health: Products and Practices for a Safer Indoor Environment is a one-stop guide to environmentally preferable cleaning products and methods for offices, schools, hospitals, and other facilities.
- Faith and Fortune: The Quiet Revolution to Reform American Business makes the case that "great companies serve their workers, customers, shareholders, and the common good."
- Leading Change Toward Sustainability: A Change-Management Guide for Business, Government, and Civil Society demystifies the sustainability-change process by providing a theoretical framework and a methodology that managers can use to successfully transform their organizations.
- The Natural Step for Business: Wealth, Ecology & the Evolutionary Corporation outlines The Natural Step's real-life use in the trenches (includes case studies of a retailer and a hotel chain).
- Sustainable Banking and Finance: People -- The Financial Sector and the Future of the Planet examines the role of banking and finance in determining whether society succeeds in following a sustainable path.
* * * * *
Got A Question?
Send your questions about environmental management issues to [email protected]
We can't guarantee that we'll answer every question, but we'll try.
Want more "Ask the Experts"? Visit our archive.
-------
Gil Friend, systems ecologist and business strategist, is president and CEO of Natural Logic, Inc. -- offering advisory services and tools that help companies and communities prosper by embedding the laws of nature at the heart of enterprise. Sign up online to receive his monthly column via email. Read Gil's blog here.
