Today's Green Business Networking event

For today's event we're going to continue to brainstorm ways to make local businesses more green. I've taken the list we came up with last time and divided it into 5 categories, which can be seen below. These will serve as a starting point for generating more ideas tonight. So come out to the Tate Center from 4:30 - 6:30 and bring your creative thinking cap.

Office/Materials/Supplies
Turn off lights when not needed
Print on recycled paper
Print less
Mandate 2-sided printing
Use freecycle or craigslist to acquire and dispose of materials
Offer reusable items in kitchens
Educate employees about wasteful practices
Compost foodscraps
Use green cleaning/janitorial services

Employees
Institute a 4-day work week
Offer telecommuting
Facilitate carpooling and bicycle commuting
Have a mid-day recess

Building
Select sustainable worksites (e.g. LEED certified)
Install green roofs, rain barrels, programmable thermostats, solar panels
Seal building envelope
Use existing structures
Create an organic garden on site

Internal Organization
Name a sustainability officer and develop a plan
Use lifecycle analysis in formulating environmental plan
Use or create environmentally friendly products
E-organizing

External
Partner with DHEC for SCEEP
E-marketing instead of paper
Partner/work with other sustainable businesses

New Theme for Next Networking Event: Bring Your Creativity

I've been asked a few times what the theme will be for the next event. After a bit of thinking I decided that while it's great to have themes about particular industries and gets people thinking of new ideas, it would be really great if we could puts all of those great ideas together and create some value to share with everyone. As my emails note the primary intention of the events is to bring together a wide range of minds. That wide range of experience and knowledge can lead to a wonderfully wide range of ideas. So we will try something new: brainstorming.

Here's what I have in mind. While the regular interactive networking is going on, I will have poster boards or something for capturing ideas. We'll set a new topic each month to address and ask everyone to contribute some ideas. So for the first month we'll do something easy, "tips on how to make businesses more green." With two to three dozen diverse people we can easily come up with a list of 100 or more ideas.

This of course won't take away from the regular networking since the brainstorming will be mostly silent (like a silent auction). And since one of my areas of research expertise is creativity, especially in groups, I can take some time in a separate room to facilitate a more interactive brainstorming session if needed.

Greening Your Office

If you need to go out and get some new supplies for the office, look for the TerraCycle products coming to OfficeMax. According to GreenBiz.com, the office supply store will begin stocking some of TerraCycle's products, such as the pencil holders made from Capri Sun pouches. The neat thing about TerraCycle is that they are repurposing (reusing) products rather than recycling them in the more common sense of melting them down and turning them into something else, which uses plenty of energy. Of course looking at their products makes it easy for the crafty to make some of the stuff themselves, but I don't think the company would be too upset about that.

Greening Your Office

There's a good article today over on GreenBiz.com about creating The Zero Waste Office. Waste has been one of my primary concerns going way back to grade school in the 70's where I was taught to "waste not, want not" and "reduce, reuse, recycle". The latter of which is hierarchical. That is, try to reduce first, if that's not possible, reuse, then recycle. It seems too often people jump right into recycling without trying the others first. Being one that pretty much abhors waste, I'd like to see people begin bragging about how much they've reduced and reused before they talk about their recycling efforts. Which gets me back to the article. It's one of the few I've read recently that actually brings up the old reduce, reuse, recycle concept. The thing is, it makes perfect business sense. Reducing and reusing saves money, recycling usually doesn't, and in fact may even cost money. Any organization, whether it's a for-profit business, a non-profit charity or even a family, can benefit from saving money by reducing and reusing.

Survey Asks How “Green” is the American Workplace?

I received this in a email from a colleague.

Companies say it’s not easy being green, but the benefits are great

Alexandria, Va., January 16, 2008 – “Going green” is a hot topic, but has the workplace caught on yet? According to the 2008 SHRM Green Workplace Survey released today by the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), 50 percent of surveyed organizations have a formal or informal environmental responsibility policy, but 43 percent have no such policy and no plans to implement one within the next 12 months.

“The findings revealed a surprising paradox,” said Susan R. Meisinger, president and CEO of SHRM. “The study shows that companies really do benefit from environmentally-friendly practices, and yet a large portion of firms have no plans to ‘go green’,” she added.

Companies that implement environmental responsibility programs report considerable benefits. Human resource (HR) professionals cite improved employee morale (44 percent) and a stronger public image for the company (42 percent) as top benefits. They also report increased consumer/customer confidence/choice (20 percent) and a positive financial bottom line (19 percent) as a result of the organization’s environmental responsible program. Survey respondents also cite increased employee loyalty (16 percent).

These findings indicate that “green” initiatives can be a selling point to attract potential employees, particularly among younger workers. “These employees check the background of organizations and talk with employees to find out for themselves if the ‘green’ CSR messaging delivers on its promise,” said Gerlinde Herrmann, SHRP, president of the Herrmann Group and a member of SHRM’s Corporate Social Responsibility Expertise Panel.

Despite the benefits, HR professionals admit that it’s not easy for their companies to become and remain environmentally friendly. The most common barrier to creating an environmental program is implementation cost (85 percent) followed by maintenance cost (74 percent). Other barriers include lack of management support (43 percent), lack of employee support (25 percent), and concern for workplace inefficiency (20 percent).

Still, nearly three out of four employees from companies without environmental programs say they want their employers to “go green.” Seventy-three (73) percent of surveyed employees in companies without an environmental responsibility policy thought it was very or somewhat important that their organization develop an environmental responsibility policy.

“It is possible for every organization to provide some level of environmentally responsible practices,” said Victoria Johnson, M.S., PHR, the human resources director of Fellowship House and a member of SHRM’s Corporate Social Responsibility Expertise Panel.

Other notable findings in the SHRM Green Workplace Survey are below.

• While C-suite support for company initiatives is key, relatively few at the CEO/President (15 percent) level are responsible for creating the environmentally responsible program and fewer (four percent) are responsible for program implementation. The majority of such programs are created by a senior management team (32 percent) and roughly the same number (31 percent) are also responsible for implementation.

• HR professionals rank the top five environmentally-responsible practices to be: 1) encouraging employees to work more environmentally friendly (83 percent); 2) offering a recycling program for office products (83 percent); 3) donating and discounting used office furniture and supplies to employees or local charity (73 percent); 4) using energy efficient lighting systems and equipment such as ENERGY STAR® equipment and occupancy sensors (66 percent); and 5) installing automatic shutoff for equipment (63 percent).

• Employees offer a slightly different view and rank the five most important environmentally-responsible practices as follows: 1) donating and discounting used office furniture and supplies to employees or local charity (53 percent); 2) promoting walking, biking, taking public transit (49 percent); 3) using energy efficient lighting systems and equipment (43 percent); 4) offering a recycling programs for office products (39 percent); and 5) encouraging employees to work more environmentally friendly (36 percent).

• Both human resource professionals and employees state that their primary, or number one, motivation for participating in environmentally responsible programs is to make a contribution to society. HR professionals placed more weight on environmental (53 percent) and economic (46 percent) considerations as second and third most prevalent company motivators. Employees report public relations strategy (26 percent) and health and safety considerations (24 percent), respectively, as the second and third driving factors.

The Green Workplace Survey’s 429 HR professional respondents represent publicly- and privately-owned companies, nonprofits, and the government sector. The 504 employee sample was randomly selected from U.S. telephone population. All employee respondents were either employed full time or part time.

A complete copy of the survey is available at www.shrm.org/surveys. (But it's for members only).