Is your company fat?
If you don’t have an active green business strategy in place, you may have a fat company. Almost all business owners/CEO’s have ‘to-do’ lists a mile long, are stressed and pushed to the max as it is. Asking you to consider adopting a green business strategy to save the planet is a weak proposition at best. Granted you probably realize there is some money/benefit to going green but it’s not at the top of your list. Putting aside the easy to determine tangible benefits (lower operational costs, rebates/tax credits/incentives, etc) here’s a problem you may not have considered:
You might be running a fat company.
Fat companies waste money and time through inefficiencies and over-spending. Instead of running hyper-efficient, they lose money/time/resources in areas that are simple to control. The difference between high-performance companies (Fast Green Companies) and fat companies is simple. Fast green companies maximize the utility of every aspect of their business. IF they overspend on anything it’s on people, sales and marketing. Fat companies overspend on operations (power, water, equipment and supplies). For fast green companies, a kilowatt is a kilowatt and they pay as little for them as possible. They also waste precious few as well. Fast green companies excel at maximizing rebates, incentives and tax credits to make their business run more efficient and thus, less costly. Fat companies pay more for lighting, for example, and disregard or don’t know about the rebates available to them. They overspend on electricity, water, paper supplies, etc. They are running a marathon in cement sneakers.
Here’s a 3 question test to see if your company is running fat:
1. How much money in energy-efficiency rebates or tax incentives did you receive last year?
- More than $25,000 (3 points)
- Between $10,000- $25,000 (2 points)
- Less than $10,000 (0 points)
2. Do you have a green business strategy running right now?
- Yes, and it’s going great (3 points)
- Have one but haven’t implemented it yet (2 points)
- Don’t have one, don’t know what it is (0 points)
3. When was the last time you had an energy audit done on your office or building?
- In the last 12 months (3 points)
- More than a year ago (2 points)
- Never had one ( 0 points)
Scoring:
6-9 Points – Congratulations, you run a true fast green company.
3-5 Points – Not bad, but you’ve got some work to do.
0-2 Points – Time to hit the gym and drop the lbs..
For some, going green may be all about saving the polar bears, the rain forest and the planet. Theirs is a noble pursuit*. For the harried CEO/business owner, going green can be a great way to trim the company waistline.
For information on becoming a fast green company, send me a note below.
*I get asked frequently why I spend so much time writing and speaking about the business reasons to go green and little time on the environmental reasons. The simple truth is that I believe I can affect more positive change through working with business owners and CEO’s. To be effective I need to be clear about the business benefits available to them. For me, the end does justify the means. If I get a client to use 5 million LESS gallons a water annually, I’m less concerned about their reasons and more excited about the environmental results of their actions. In that sense I am a true tree-hugging capitalist.
