“Do you think going green will give you a competitive advantage, even save you money? Do you think your customers are more likely to buy if you are green? Do you want to do better by the environment and your community? If so, you are not alone. Many feel the need to go green. Jonathan Estes in Smart Green turns this need into value and lays out the steps for going green.?Read it and get ahead of your competition and the green tsunami sweeping the country.”
Frank Phoenix, PE, LEED-AP, Partner, Greenbridge Developments, LLC

“Estes’s book articulates the opportunities, challenges, and trends of the blossoming conscious consumer movement using insightful research to make the case for growing a green business. His compendium examines and dissects our cultural shift in which a handful of people are optimists, many are ambivalent, and everyone is a skeptic.”
David Lubensky, President, Bagatto, Inc.

“Smart Green is a very practical guide for getting started with greening your company. Estes has taken the principles of business planning and applied them to a very complex subject. Worth the read.”
Michael Knupp, former CEO, The RETEC Group, and former member, World Business Council for Sustainable Development

“Estes’s Smart Green is a great resource for small to mid-size enterprises that want to make measurable improvement in performance and align themselves with the global green wave. From strategic planning to practical how-to examples, Estes demonstrates how we can go green and make some too.”
Aaron Nelson, IOM, President and CEO, Chapel Hill-Carrboro (NC) Chamber of Commerce, and Executive Director, Foundation for a Sustainable Community

Jonathan M. Estes is cofounder and Senior Analyst at Strategic Measures, Inc., based in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, a management consulting firm that empowers leaders and teams to make decisions with an eye toward social equity, environmental stewardship, and profits.

Smart Green

How to Implement Sustainable Business Practices in Any Industry – and Make MoneyBy Jonathan Estes

John Wiley & Sons

Copyright © 2009 Jonathan Estes
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-470-38779-5

Chapter One

The Green Rush

In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity. –Albert Einstein

THE TIMES THEY ARE A-CHANGIN’

You can’t turn on the TV, read a newspaper, listen to the radio, or surf the Web without hearing about “going green,” “climate change,” and “sustainability.” Obviously, the largest market crash since the Great Depression and fluctuating gasoline prices up to $4 per gallon helps to motivate people to conserve and consider alternative energy sources; but even before recent increases in the price of gas, consumers have been bombarded with a plethora of new advertising messages and images that assume we are concerned about toxins in our homes, organic and fair-trade ingredients in our food, and energy-efficient cars and appliances. I was struck by one Web site from a major facilities management firm that changed overnight from images of soaring skyscrapers and monstrous machinery to green fields and children playing in flower gardens. Why this sudden interest in going green among consumers and at every level of our corporate society? Is going green a real economic revolution, or is this yet another trendy topic that will burn out-until the next oil-dependency crisis? The winds of change are palpable not just by a few college students, environmental activists, political strategists, and consumer advocates; rather, the interest in green products and a sustainable lifestyle is becoming a major trend in the mainstream. For entrepreneurs, investors, corporate managers across all industries, there is a rush to become aware of all things green and to meet the new, emerging consumer demand. And behind this surge of interest to meet a market potential, there is a glimmer of interest in making a difference in the world: building a better community, making our environment a better place for all its inhabitants, and growing successful businesses.

THE TIPPING POINT

During the past several years, like most people, I had noticed an increase in the debate about whether global warming was caused by humans or a natural, temporary phenomenon. Most of the information I was hearing remained in the background as white noise, drowned out by the news of the day and my own concerns. I read about greenhouse gases, the ozone layer depletion, polar bears trapped on melting ice flows, peak oil, increasing droughts worldwide, and more catastrophic storms. Every once in a while, the news about climate change would impact me directly: It has been getting increasingly unbearably hot in North Carolina in the summer (topping 100 degrees and 90 percent humidity for days on end). But like many people, I was too busy running my company, paying the bills, raising a family, and being a consumer to care about changing global conditions. So I turned up the air-conditioning.

Meanwhile, a quiet revolution was taking place and a new vocabulary was emerging without me being completely aware of the implications. Terms like sustainability, fair-trade, locally grown, shade-grown, no GMO (genetically modified organism), rainforest-friendly, toxin-free, and organic began appearing on products, not just in the local health food cooperatives but in mainstream grocery stores. Concern for the environment, which has been around for decades, was beginning to become commercially significant. After starting with a trickle, suddenly the floodgates seemed to be flung open with the change of language, introduction of new products, and images of age-old companies rebranding themselves as green. A real shocker that made me look was when Clorox bought Burt’s Bees and released a green cleaning product line!

The tipping point for me to begin looking at sustainability as a focus for my personal life and business took place in the fall of 2007 as a result of small pieces of information coming together at the right time. This is how change actually happens: I had just completed a three-year contract with a firm providing software for physicians treating patients with HIV/AIDS in the developing world, so I was already connecting the dots of how and where things are made, the widening gap between the haves and have-nots, and the depletion of natural resources abroad. Like many people, I was deeply moved by Al Gore’s movie, An Inconvenient Truth and inspired to start looking at ways I could change some of my own practices. I viewed a short documentary called “The Next Industrial Revolution: William McDonough, Michael Braungart and the Birth of the Sustainable Economy” about the financial benefits of redesigning products to be of high quality and not harmful to the environment from the time they are made to their disposal. Companies profiled in the McDonough/Braungart film demonstrated how it was possible to change the entire design of their product, be environmentally friendly, and make a profit.

As a business value analyst for the facilities management sector, I had observed many times how green initiatives such as changes to building design and reduction of energy costs benefited the organizations financially. For me, it wasn’t just the cost savings in the short term-it was the long-term, measurable benefits of improved employee morale, which translate into better retention, less sick leave, and increased productivity. The myth about going green being too expensive began eroding with evidence of a meaningful return on investment (ROI). Also, at many facilities conferences I attended, an increasing number of facilities and production managers were coming with checks in hand to buy green products. (Even with the increased number of companies supplying green products today, a gap still remains between demand and the availability of a diversity of products that customers want.) The final contribution to my tipping point came from the book Good News for a Change. I read about how businesses were changing and becoming concerned about the environment while still being financially successful, but equally important to me was the depth of change among the business owners, their employees, their customers, and their vendors. Against many obstacles, these businesses persevered in the belief that there must be a balance between being financially successful, a good steward of the environment, and committed to principles of social equity.

This interest in sustainability and all things green is actually a revolution in the same sense as the industrial revolution-a fundamental shift of our values and practices concerning financial means, how we interact with the environment, and how we treat each other. I was hooked. My background in international development, value analytics, and entrepreneurship found a home, and I’m now committed to inspiring others to find their own tipping points. The question is, will anything we do make a difference. Can the business community be an integral part of turning the tide of global public action to reverse many of the policies and practices in motion potentially accelerating rapid climate change? Many of the recent reports indicate there is a chance to avert significant disaster, but we have to act fast.

CLIMATE CHANGE: “THE GREATEST MARKET FAILURE THE WORLD HAS EVER SEEN”

The time is over keeping our heads in the sand about climate change and the effects of global warming. In the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fourth Assessment Report, “Climate Change 2007” recommends immediate steps for stemming the tide of effects of global warming. The report asserts (supported by extensive peer review), “There is very high confidence that the net effect of human activities since 1750 has been one of warming.” Their findings included the following:

Earth’s surface temperature has increased 1.33 degrees Fahrenheit since 1900 (0.74 degrees Celsius), mostly in the past 50 years, likely making this the warmest period of the past 1,300 years. Eleven of the past 12 years have been the warmest years in the instrumental record, dating back to 1850. Recent temperature and carbon dioxide (C[O.sub.2]) emission trends are at the high end of the range forecast by the IPCC, with the global average temperature now rising about one-half degree Fahrenheit per decade. The frequency of heat waves, forest fires, and heavy-precipitation events has increased globally since 1950. Areas affected by drought have spread globally since the 1970s. The incidence of coastal flooding has increased since 1975. Arctic sea ice cover has shrunk 20 percent since 1978, when satellite measurements began. The rate of sea level rise has jumped 70 percent since 1993, compared to the prior 30-year measurement period. Rapid melting of the Greenland ice sheet is now raising new concerns that the amount of sea level rise that might occur this century will be measured in meters, not inches.

As startling and disconcerting as these statistics are, the most significant information from the report is the connection between these changes and that of human and financial losses increasing every day, and yet to come. From the rise of infectious diseases, loss of water sources, temperatures rising by 10 degrees Fahrenheit, sea level rising by two feet, worsening storms, and if C[O.sub.2] emissions are left unabated, “climate change could cause a 5 to 20 percent reduction in the projected global gross domestic product by 2050.5,” according to The Stern Review. The former chief World Bank economist Sir Nicholas Stern called climate change “the greatest market failure the world has ever seen.” Add to this the global financial crisis and now more than ever there is a need for a shared collective vision for a new type of economics based on honesty, integrity, caring, and respect for each other, the planet, and our economic way of life.

WHAT IS SUSTAINABILITY AND WHY SHOULD I CARE?

Shortly after my own tipping point for taking sustainability more seriously, it was as if a light was turned on throughout the country. No matter where I turned, green was in. I was able to buy cloth bags for groceries at Target, I found an entire cable channel called Planet Green dedicated exclusively to green topics, and I just bought an organic cotton fair-trade T-shirt made in Nicaragua from WalMart! It was like buying a new car, having never noticed the model before, and suddenly seeing everyone driving the same one. But I think it’s more than that, because most of the people I spoke with all over the country were experiencing something similar: Climate change is real, whether or not humanity caused it; the human race has to change its behavior of unharnessed growth immediately or the planet and its inhabitants will suffer; and our current sources of energy, food production, and raw materials are being more rapidly depleted than previously predicted as emerging countries strive for the Western lifestyle. An old term has been resurrected to give a new meaning to the rising interest in green: Sustainability.

According to Andres Edwards in The Sustainability Revolution, sustainability can be summarized from the 1987 Brundtland Report as “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs,” a definition that has evolved since then from discussions among business leaders, policy makers, and environmentalists from around the world. The concept of sustainability has also been inclusive of conservation, the three Rs of reduce, recycle, reuse; and energy efficiency. From small, sustainable agricultural projects in the developing world to global conferences discussing economic implications of climate change, the concept of sustainability has been transformed to encompass three basic components, otherwise known as the triple bottom line (a term coined by John Elkington in his book Cannibals with Forks: The Triple Bottom Line of 21st Century Business), which are inextricably linked to one another: people-the social equity aspect that implies ensuring the benefits of opportunity and equality for every human being; planet-the environmental aspect that implies preserving the natural qualities of our ecosystem for the benefit and health of future generations; and profits-the economic aspect that implies balancing financial growth with awareness and concern for the social good and environmental stewardship (see Figure 1.1).

As an entrepreneur, I noticed something different about the concept of sustainability: It unites normally contentious concepts such as social good and environmental stewardship with the goal of financial gain. If you are part of the business community or the environmental activist community, then you probably share my surprise at the implications of the widespread interest in this unity. Sustainability and the definition of the triple bottom line continue to evolve, being driven by a myriad of individuals, organizations, corporations, and government agencies worldwide toward an essentially common goal of reordering our existence as inhabitants of a planet with limited resources, a planet that is sensitive to our exertions of unbridled growth. No one group or interest owns the definition of sustainability or its application; however, an unprecedented number of individuals and organizations are adopting the basic principles and sharing results with others, inspiring a surge in innovation and new opportunities unparalleled in recent history-a sustainability revolution. Also, though the term “green” is interchangeable at times with “sustainable,” there is a distinct difference. “Green” implies specific activities related to environmental impact whereas “sustainable” implies the inclusion of three activities that impact people, planet, and profits.

Meanwhile, a myth continues to persist that needs to dispelled: that individuals and small enterprises make little or no difference in the face of global climatic and social problems. In truth, every action we take as individuals, organizations, and societies has huge ramifications for the rest of the world. For now, keep in mind that our thoughts, decisions, and actions, which include purchasing, consuming, building, expanding, and growing in our home and community, have reverberating effects on other individuals, organizations, and societies that we can change with one informed decision. Make no mistake-sustainability is here to stay; and as Danny Ocean stated emphatically to his potential partners in the film Ocean’s Eleven: “You’re either in or you’re out. Right now.”

(Continues…)

Excerpted from Smart Greenby Jonathan Estes Copyright © 2009 by Jonathan Estes. Excerpted by permission.
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