The Power of Contracts for a Green Business

Here's what you may not clearly understand. The die has been cast, the plans drawn up, and the decision has been made about where business will be in the next five years. If your company expects to be in business and hopefully profitable in this emerging economy, the realities of these mega-forces needs to be brought home to those who do not yet see the light at the end of the tunnel.Every five years after the Kyoto Accord, the agenda is ratcheted up and more far-reaching. The WRI (World Resource Institute in D.C.) refer to the next five years as the "Post 2012" period. On the global scale, environmentalism has gone well beyond signing an agreement to reduce CO2. In fact, if your business was anywhere but America, this business reality would be a much higher level of expectation. Global efforts are moving forward, and every business will encounter their impact at unexpected levels.Here in America, we have a glimmer of what to expect with Executive Order #131514. This was signed in the fall of 2009 by President Obama and signaled a further shift into a Green commitment. Though far from the comprehensive program that is seen elsewhere in the world, it sends a signal of expectation throughout the economy. The message is: "It is time to get your Green House in order."In America, the impact is likely to see a more form of Green transition rather than socialistic mandates. One example came a few years ago when Governor Charlie Crist mandated that no government business would go to hotels that were not Green. Guess how long it took for hotels to turn into a Green hotel? Contracts are the lifeblood of many businesses, so a small requirement in an RFP can have profound effects on a company's attitude about Going Green.Due to the expanding influence of FAR (Federal Acquisition Regulations) started under President George H Bush and strengthened by Presidents Bill Clinton and George W Bush, the ripple effect is being felt in government contracts. More and more environmental requirements are turning up in contracts with the government.The trucking industry is one of the latest examples of this dynamic. Unless the newer, and Greener diesel engines are used; governmental contracts are not awarded. LEED facilities demand Green janitorial or service providers. Larger corporations have not only made the transition to sustainable status, they now follow the Green supply chain protocols seeking Green service and product suppliers.The EPA is promoting its "Environmentally Preferred Purchasing" program that asks businesses to make preferential decisions for Green certified companies. This is not going without notice. Conferences and seminars are echoing the EPA's message with the call for Green Supply Chain and Life Cycle Analysis studies.Pressure from environmental program, the world market, the government, and large corporations has an extremely obvious conclusion. Any company that is planning on earning good contracts in the future must become more than greenwashed, but Green certified.The hesitation felt by companies considering a transition to a Green and sustainable program is usually a concern for the cost and interruption to the business. That is like claiming that the pain of childbirth would prevent repopulation. In fact, the rewards for Going Green are often mistaken or simply ignored. Nearly any business would be willing to pay the cost and go through the trouble to win a lucrative contract.Here are the best reasons to Go Green as a company: First, a properly developed sustainability plan will save the company a great deal of money. Cutting operational costs makes your company more viable. Secondly, there will be more and more requirements tied to contracts, good jobs, and your industry. Why wait until your company is punished by missing a contract worth tens of thousands of dollars? Thirdly, no matter how we try to deny the reality, there are going to be more and more environmental regulations. Smart companies are getting ahead of this curve and getting ready for business in this new economy.The only question is when and how your company will finally make its transition to Green. The answer to this question is clearly laid laid out in EO #13514. Essentially, every business needs to train an in-house Green Officer (Certified Sustainability Officer or CSO) whose primary duty is to develop a sustainability plan tailored to your company's unique situation. Thirdly, the company needs to facilitate and implement the sustainability plan as part of the ongoing operational expectations.Fourth, is the recognition of the company as a Green certified business. This is an area that has two important choices. The first choice is called "Easy Green" where certification comes from a sham website offering certification through "blind audits" or those community green business certifications that have negligible compliance or oversight.Companies that wish to demonstrate a serious commitment to sustainable operations should seek certification from audited programs like LEED, ISO, or Green Business League. The CSO prepares the company for such an audit, but the highest praise and value comes from the ability to demonstrate the environmental value of the company through a credible Green certification.Installing a CSO or Green Officer need not be a serious expense. In most cases, someone in the company can be trained online. While this is an area of special knowledge, it is not a difficult task to learn how to develop a well-designed sustainability plan. Why hire a Certified Sustainability Office when one can be trained internally? It is important, however, that the CSO is part of the company planning discussion and that the sustainability plan is included in the general operational plan of the company.On that inevitable day when your company encounters a deal, contract, or bidding opportunity that requires Green certification; your company need not walk away empty-handed. The number of contracts tied to Green certification will continue to increase. The non-Green marketplace will shrink. What course should your company take if it hopes to compete in the marketplace over the next five years?

Nightmares of a Green Business

When the public thinks of a Green business, the implied message is that the company is probably a very happy and healthy place to work. The workplace should not be a scary place where some discoveries would send chills down the spine and a shock to our senses. Yet, the truth is that many Green businesses are a threat to the workers who spend a good part of their life in less-than-safe environments.The most stunning Green business nightmare is an accidental visit to the janitor's closet. Although the operation is a relatively clean building with a nightly crew of seldom seen people who quietly clean every room of your facility, things may not be what you think. Far more sinister discoveries lurk behind the doors that will tell us more than most of us really want to know. But, there is that curiosity that drives the suspicious few to find out what really lies beyond the obvious. We would all assume that the place that holds all the cleaning products must be the safest place of all, right?Opening the door to this rarely visited place reveals a less-than-safe place. If you are bold enough to enter, those with environmental sensitivities quickly feel a hauntingly odd feeling that this is a place that the day-people are not supposed to see. You will see the things you will expect to see. Brooms, mops, and buckets rest in the corner in less than good condition. A set of shelves is affixed to a wall crammed full of a wide array of bottles. Some products are used to clean the toilet bowl. These bowl cleaners are found to contain acids that certainly aren't good for people. There is the ubiquitous white bottle of bleach that most people know as a dangerous chemical. The bleach bottle is sitting next to the ammonia bottle that is mixed with water to clean windows. You really do not want to know what will happen when you mix ammonia and bleach in a common container. The fumes that are produced that will devastate your lungs and could kill a person in short order.If one looks further, they will often find large containers of floor stripper sitting on the floor. Floor stripper is so caustic that it will blister your skin or cause blindness if not quickly washed with water. Sitting next to the stripper is the floor finish that is a combination of zinc and acrylic compounds. Floor finish is not as caustic as the floor stripper, but it also emits something called volatile organic compounds that the EPA cautions the public can have acute and chronic consequences with continued exposure. At this point, the concerned visitor will be tempted to hold his breath because he suddenly realizes that he is breathing a massive combination of potentially hazardous airborne poisons.Also in this room is an odd looking machine call a buffer. This is used to buff the stripped and newly-finished hard floors to a glossy shine. If you were around when the stripper product was applied at night, you would feel a choking impulse in your throat, and your eyes would smart and ache. When the floor finish is put down, these fumes seem less intense; but every product that dries emits a different kind of volatile organic compounds, so don't be fooled by the milder smell. When the workers turn on the buffer, you might notice that they wear masks because the buffer throws billion of small particles into the air that contain zinc and other compounds. Of course, since this is done at night, all the workers will detect in the morning are the shiny floors and a residual chemical smell.Looking further on the shelves are aerosol sprays that can't be good for the atmosphere. Some contain ozone depleting chemicals. Others have compressed gases that are released into the air circulation system of the building. You will also find spray bottles with cleaning solutions in them. Of course, the required Material Safety Data Sheets that the law requires to be posted in these areas are most often missing. Some cleaning products foam and fizzle, which means that there is a chemical reaction causing a gas release of some kind. There are cans of Comet-like scouring powers, old rags and mops, and other bottles than have an unknown purpose.One thing you will recognize is the vacuum cleaner. You are somewhat reassured that this is evidence of the competency of the service, until you dare to feel the bag to find that it probably hasn't been emptied for more than week or so. The old festering dirt is routinely stirred up each evening when these vacuums are turned on. Making things worse, these are not even the well-known HEPA vacuums that will remove more of the dirt from the air. These are the cheaper models that blow microscopic particles though each and every room that is vacuumed. Perhaps, it would have been wise to use a Green certified janitorial service after all.Another rare discovery is made when one happens to be in the office after hours. Buildings are often lonely places when the day crew has gone. This time the nightly visitation is not from a group of workers who speak an odd language, but from a crew of workers clad in Ghostbuster-type outfits carrying tanks and hoses. These are the pest killers who arrive every month or so to spray about chemicals to destroy pest and vermin. You may be mildly assured that "This stuff is safe for humans," but it will kill everything else! Few people ever know what products are being sprayed about, but these ingredients add yet another layer of potentially dangerous chemicals into the air that recycle throughout the building day after day.During your daring visit of the most unlikely places in the building, you might hazard a visit to the basement or some storage area. Here you will find all the things that the business once thought were necessary, but now reside in the limbo area of the building waiting to be eventually sent out to the trash. As you enter, your nose detects the familiar but pungently unlikable smell of mold and mildew. This happens all the time in dark and dank places. Cardboard boxes, old paper, and moisture from condensation or a slow leak are the perfect environment for mold. Mold produces yet another danger to your health known as microbial volatile organic compounds. The air exchange moves circulated air through this area as well as the rest of the building.Perhaps, you will recall the new paint in various areas, the new carpeting, or even the new furniture brought into your building over the last year. Each of these additional improvements actually brought even more fumes, smells, and outgassing opportunities that also befoul the air. Most would have thought that these improvements were positive additions to the office, but they added even more to the increasingly toxic cloud of air that workers breathe every day. Fragrances that have a chemical composition should also be consider air pollution.Workers bring in even more problems by sneezing germs into the air, introducing bacteria to the facility, and preparing food with attendant smells. The greatest shock of all is that this company is promoted as a Green business. Well, they did change some of the lights over to CFLs and made a corporate decision to buy recycled paper for all copiers. Oh yes, they even bought a Green logo off the Internet. But, the facts are clear that this is a nightmare as a Green business. The indoor air quality impacts the health of each and every worker. They breathe this accumulation of toxic substances 365 days a year for what could be a twenty year employment term.The reality is that a truly Green company must address the indoor air quality as a fundamental of all other environmental improvements. Recycling, energy savings, and source reduction are the other parts of a Green or sustainable business. Unless a company addresses the Green certification in a proper way, the results are going to be a nightmare rather than a dream. To do the job right, contact the Green Business League for serious guidance and certification. A Certified Green Consultant is the proven solution to a healthy and an environmentally friendly business. Everything else is an illusion of Green and a may have scary consequences.

Tips on Branding a Green Business

Do you recall "Cutters"?  These were the people who seemed to have no regard for anyone else except getting there before you.  It seemed that life has always been all about their interests, not yours.  It is an insult to everyone who did things right by those who just didn't give a damn about the effect on you.Cutting has found its way into the Green business arena as businesses find ways to cut in line ahead of the ones who are doing it right. The right way to develop as a Green business is to develop a sustainability plan that does more than a few token gestures, and then faithfully implement that plan over time. To validate that the efforts were real and properly engaged, an auditor is called in to verify that the company had achieved a level of certification. These four steps of planning, implementation, audit, and certification are the normal and right way to develop a truly Green business.Any attempt to brand your company as a Green business must be supported by something more than boast and should have substance that supports the company's marketing and branding campaign. Well, there are those who just can't wait that long.  Instead, they follow one of several ways to cut into line as others faithfully follow the rules.  For those wondering, "Cutting" is just another definition for the Greenwashing mania happening across America.   Of course, the most flagrant form of cutting is simply self-assertion.  Small companies do it by inventing their own logo on Photoshop or making Green claims in their advertising that are not fair representations.  Larger companies have the budget for more polished Greenwashing efforts.If you Google for "Green business certification" on the Internet, you will find that 98% of the companies offering to certify your business "Sight unseen."  These website represent to worst form of Green certification because they rely on deceptive practices from the start.  An audit is not a self-assessment.  Yet, these firms claim to filling in forms about your company are an audit.  Worse yet, they ask the company to pass the deception on to the customer by claiming that they are "Green certified."   The only real requirement for these scam certifications is paying the fee.In a less critical application, many cities have borrowed the idea of forming a Green business certification that comes in an ad hoc committee to promote their Green project.  It reminds me of Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland years where they put on a Hollywood show in a barn.  You can admire the initiative, but there is not much credibility in such project.  Participants have to be concerned that a lack of future funding or a demise of volunteers will bring this boastful program down to a humiliating end.Greenwashing is endemic in the business world, and the variation run from blatant abuse to well-intended ignorance.  This brings us to the element that should be found in a true certification program.  First of all, there needs to be a national standard that creates a uniformity of compliance.  It need not be complex or difficult, but provide a tiered process for companies to follow.Secondly, there is simply no way to claim certification without a standard of compliance and an audit of the compliance by the company.  Returning to the format offered at the start of this article, the plan and implementation is how companies "Play Fair" when it comes to a Green business transition.  The audit and certification is how the public knows that the company isn't cutting into line under false pretenses.The public should take note of every Green logo that they encounter and do a quick Internet search to see which companies are trying to cheat the system.  If the logo is merely a purchase made online and the numerous forms are smart window-dressing that are never audited, then stop doing business with that company.  Their lack of ethics and integrity will show up in other ways as well.If the company has the audacity to make their own Green logo and claim to be Green, the buyer should beware that under such self-promotions a company has no standard of compliance.  Any company could literally go out and buy recycled paper and therefore claim that they have "Gone Green." In a day of marketing ingenuity and hype, we may want to remember the truism: "What is not measured cannot be proved, and what cannot be proved should not be believed."  The marketing efforts of any company should not be built on pretense, but with honesty.  In an age that calls for transparency, deception is not a good marketing strategy.

Green Business Certification

When your company is thinking about Going Green, it may be good to think forward about how a decision to seek a Green certification will affect your business. The kind of "Easy Green" now promoted to this Green-driven market brings short-term gain with long term worries. No decision to create an environmentally-friendly business format should compromise the integrity of the company's future. This is a decision worthy of better thought.Take, for example, the near certainty that some investigative reporter is sure to look into the growing number of website certifications that require only a few hundred dollars of payment and a self-assessment form. The lack of any integrity factors for these kinds of certifications seem to invite abuses. In other words, a less-than-honest firm can earn the same certification as a environmentally-committed company. This glaring invitation for abuse will certainly come back to haunt companies who took the easy route to a world stressing problem. Only a fool could think that these easy-to-cheat systems will become a bastion of integrity.It has been properly said:"If we cannot measure something, we cannot verify it." The obvious purpose of a Green certification logo is to provide the public with some assurance that the logo means something more than that the applicant paid a fee and filled in a form. These programs promote a fundamental deception because the certification has been designed to convey public confidence in something that has not been verified or even reviewed by an independent professional.Just ask yourself how you would feel after deciding to do business with another firm that boasts of its Green merit to win your business,and you subsequently discover that any firm with a few hundred dollars could buy the same designation. Would you feel deceived and cheated? This will be the ugly fate of more than a few companies that take the "Easy Green" route of short-circuiting the system rather than making a realistic commitment.The whole concept of greenwashing has been artificially kept alive because of a business belief that marketing is the bending of perceptions to boost marketshare and profits. Advertising has always provided the latitude to turn negatives into positives, words into realities, and minimums into maximums. So, what happens when the allowances of marketing run into the demands of integrity? In the case of environmentalism, the mongoloid child is called greenwashing.If the only way to verify Green compliance is by measuring or testing, then the obvious antidote to greenwashing is an audit by a professional who uses an industry standard of compliance, The Green Business League made a commitment years ago to train certifiers (auditors) and provide a standard for a Green business that requires more than good intentions or a token effort. More than 250 Certified Green Consultants provide guidance and audits for businesses willing to prove their Green value.This standard has been recently affirmed in an executive order by President Obama requiring a sustainability officer who is required to project a variety of Green and sustainable practices for their agency or company. This federal requirement shows that the path forward is not one of self-acclamation, but of proven compliance.Let us return to the original question. What would be the investigative reporters criticism to find that your company (out of many other Easy Green companies) installed a series of Green practices that had been audited by an independent professional and found to merit a national certification? You would probably feel pretty good about being the one that stood out as the authentically Green business.Audits prove that you keep honest books. Audits prevent cheating by manufacturers. Audits of inventory stop thievery. No one really wants an audit unless they know that the audit will prove the quality of the work done. Those who desire to cheat the system resist audits. One of the failures of Copenhagen was China's willingness to sign on to all the mandates of the Climate Control Summit as long as China did not have to submit to an audit of the results. What message does that revelation convey to you in clear message. China has no intention to live up to the mandates, although they will put on a show that they are concerned about the environment. This is a classic example of Green washing.Companies everywhere should make the commitment to reject Greenwashing by insisting on Green certification earned by Green practices certified by an independent audit. Accepting any Green claim at face value is as foolish as inviting the unscrupulous of the world to pay you in Monopoly money. Why not play golf with someone who feels that adjusting his score is a good way to impress his friends. If it is not measured, it cannot be verified; and if there is no audit of Green practices there can be no certification of a Green business... unless you bought it off the Internet!