As organizations are scrambling to become more efficient and cutting the “fat” from their budgets, one idea gaining attention is going to three-day weekends. This offering, without decreasing the actual hours worked per week, could not only save money, but also help the environment and public health.

This idea is being piloted in many states and companies across the country. While I was hoping to say the trend began as an effort to help the environment, as necessity is always the mother of invention, the economic downturn was the real reason it has been receiving such favorable notice. Companies realized they could close on Fridays and save money without having to reduce weekly hours.

It also aiding companies in a corporate responsibility perspective, as they strive to address some of the needs brought forward by employees in the last 5 years; environmental issues, commuting pressures as well as work-family balance.

Utah has already taken the 4 day workweek plunge- 17,000 of state employees since last August are working the 4 day work week. In their offices, there no longer a need to turn on the lights for three days, or clean buildings on fridays etc. Electric bills have dropped over the summer, thanks to less air-conditioning. As of late May the state has saved $1.8 million. Not pocket change by any means.

Employees surveyed on the 4 day work week love it- with 82 % wanting to stay the course. The shift in hours for their Monday- Thursday commute is off peak, so they have a better commute on the days they do come into the office.

An interim report released by the Utah state government in February projected a drop of at least 6,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions annually from Friday building shutdowns. If reductions in greenhouse gases from commuting are included, the state would check the generation of at least 12,000 metric tons of CO2—the equivalent of taking about 2,300 cars off the road for one year.

Recently PepsiCo, which owns the Tropicana brand, calculated that the equivalent of 3.75 pounds of carbon dioxide is emitted into the atmosphere for each half-gallon carton of orange juice it produces. As they tracked the carbon footprint to the consumers breakfast table it revealed that the biggest single source of greenhouse gas emissions turned out to be the act of growing oranges, not transportation or production.

Orange groves use nitrogen fertilizer, which requires natural gas to make. It can turn into a potent greenhouse gas when it is spread on fields. PepsiCo undertook this step as they are among one of the first companies to provide consumers with an absolute number for a products carbon footprint. The result of this study has revealed to PepsiCo the effort they will need to find ways to grow oranges using less carbon.

PepsiCo’s experience is a harbinger of the complexities other companies may face as they come under pressure to calculate their emission of carbon dioxide, a number known as a carbon footprint, and eventually to lower it.

“The main thing is helping us figure out where the carbon is in the chain,” said Neil Campbell, president of Tropicana North America, a division of PepsiCo. While acknowledging that protocols for measuring greenhouse emissions are far from perfect, Mr. Campbell said, “you can end up doing nothing if you let that stop you.”

PepsiCo, a manufacturer of soda, salty snacks and cereal based in Purchase, N.Y., is among a growing number of companies that hope to get ahead of potential government mandates and curb their energy use as prices and long-term supply grow less certain.

They also want to promote supposedly low-carbon products to consumers anxious about rising global temperatures; such labeling has already appeared in Europe.

A Brazilian conservation group has found a way to get people talking about how to conserve water. By running cartoonlike television ads to urge people to urinate in the shower thus saving water from not flushing the toilet.

This daring and darling ad has been posted on facebook and is getting many hits on u-tube, which is causing some to balk at this notion of letting loose in the shower.

Seems to be making the impact (or even more) that was intended as people are talking about it worldwide, and sending it to their friends- thus helping to get out the message that flushing one less time a day can save more than 1,150 gallons of water over the course of the year.

Back in June, IBM took the steps to form a “Green Sigma Coalition” in the quest to partner with metering, monitoring, automation, and communication software leaders for “Green” Solutions.

This industry alliance with key leaders will provide smart solutions for energy, water, waste and greenhouse gas management. The charter members of the “Green Sigma” are: Johnson Controls, Honeywell Building Solutions, ABB, Eaton, Cisco, Siemens Building Technologies Division, Schneider Electric and SAP. These members will work with IBM to integrate their products and services with IBM’s Green Sigma solution.

This in turn, will allow companies using these combined solutions to better understand energy and water usage, waste, and greenhouse gas emissions across their business operations and make changes to improve efficiency, reduce consumption and waste, and lower environmental impact.

IBM realized that as organizations work to create a greener, smarter planet, this can’t be accomplished in silo’s. Working together and bringing the strength of each organization to bare, this coalition can create solutions the world needs to conserve resources and address climate change, quicker than if they would try to accomplish this task alone.

These new relationships support IBM’s “smarter planet” initiative, which envisions a world where everything is instrumented, interconnected and intelligent.

It almost seems like an oxy moron- exposing the “warts” of an industry; however Chipotle is doing just that by sponsoring free screenings of the documentary “Food Inc.” Which is an expose of the American food industry.

Now Chipotle is no “major offender” and is quite progressive in the “fast food” arena as the Mexican Grill claims to serve more naturally raised meat than any other restaurant in the world, while also 35% of its beans are organic. But as many organizations know, a sustainable path is just that, a journey towards a goal and no company is “perfect”. However, while many are touting the “path” and marketing that effort, not many marketers would shine a spotlight on potential weak points.

“There is something very authentic about allowing your brand to become vulnerable in this way,” argues Andrea Learned in a post at the Daily Fix blog. “By inviting its customers to see the ugly truth, Chipotle is walking its talk of a responsible and healthy food movement.”

She believes the strategy works for two reasons:

• Chipotle acknowledges- and embraces- the fact that it’s on a journey toward a greater goal. The restaurant’s customers will likely appreciate the companu’s honest self-assessment and realistic ambitions. “Consumers don’t trust an ‘all and perfectly done’ proclamation, because that is truly impossible,” notes Learned.
• The company earns credibility from its unique position as industry educator. Chipotle’s right-brained audience wants to do its research before making a purchase. “Any brand that helps in this process will be duly rewarded,” she says.

“Authenticity actually can’t happen without vulnerability, scary as that sounds,” say Learned. But a risk worth taking.

No, your not reading an environmentalists to-do list, this statement above is the Mission statement of Patagonia the clothing company, which is a pure eco driven statement. Yvon Chouinard is the founder of Patagonia. He started the business selling piton’s out of his car in 1957 and along the path he has always defined his bottom line not as Wall Street has done so, but with the realization that everything his business did had an effect- mostly negative- on the environment. Which is why his newfound mission statement reflects a more urgent need for change.

Yvon is quite the hands on CEO, as he doesn’t sit in an office and dictate; he travels the planet, just like the folks who utilize his equipment and clothing, and his employees that source the materials for his clothing/equipment. As he looks around the planet in the past 20 plus years he can see a clear impact on how we are destroying the planet. He now realizes that Patagonia, the business, “exists to put into practice all the things that smart people are saying we have to do not only to save the planet but to save the economy.”

Yvon goes on to say, and this statement has been mirrored by other sustainability gurus, that in a broad sense “we need to work on the causes rather than the symptoms. You can throw money all day at symptomatic things, and you are not going to solve the problem.”

Check out Patagonia’s website- www.patagonia.com The content is getting more rich in environmental awareness plus if you want to see an effective example of a eco-philanthropic effort, Patagonia’s One Percent for the Planet, is a program put in place back in 1985 where companies, like Patagonia give back 1% of their sales to environmental charities. One percent recently hit the 1000^th member mark and has given back $42 million to more than 1,700 groups. Yvon does not acknowledge this as a “Philanthropic” effort, but just a cost of doing business. He feels that every business is a polluter, and if they are not using nonrenewable resources, then they should “tax themselves”.

Kleenex, one of the world’s largest producers of home paper products, announced this morning that it will abide by the higher levels of the Forest Stewardship Council regarding the use of the fiber in the manufacture of its products.

Allen Hershkowitz, the paper expert at NRDC, has a lot to say about this half- arsed effort on his blog-

http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/ahershkowitz/kimberlyclarks_products_remain.html

The reason for this "baby step" rating is that the new policy is to ensure that 40% of its North American fiber is either recycled or certified by FSC and to use recycled content for 25% of its products company-wide. This does not guarantee that Kimberly- Clark will in fact increase recycled content in any of its at-home products, most of which do not currently contain any recycled content at all.

So kudo’s for the baby step, seems about time they took one- but do I smell some “Green washing” here? Many competing at-home tissue products, found on the same shelf as Cottonelle and Kleenex have already found pathways to success while incorporating high levels of recycled content, which alas has these competitors’ giant steps ahead of Kimberly Clark on the sustainability path.

FYI- most sustainable tissue products are the ones with the highest possible levels of post consumer recycled content. Recently Scott has taken steps with their Scott’s Naturals Line that offers a 40% recycled fiber in it’s at-home offering. While it is quite the scratchy endeavor, I am convinced these products can only improve and the amount of tree's saved by the use of 1 roll of paper is staggering- If every household in the United States replaced just one roll of virgin fiber toilet paper (500 sheets) with 100% recycled ones, we could save 423,900 trees in a year!

Marcal takes it one step further with 100% premium recycled paper products that are hypoallergenic, virtually lint free, and whitened without chlorine bleaching.

Yes we are aware of Green Forest and Seventh Generation and other companies- but they started their product lifecycle with sustainability in mind, whereas Kimberly Clark, Marcal and Scott have had to adopt a “Green” approach, and re-engineer their product offering- much harder to accomplish.

For a list of paper products that utilize recycled content check out this link:

http://www.nrdc.org/land/forests/gtissue.asp

As I further my work on understanding what makes a company successfully implement a sustainability plan and what factors lead to an unsuccessful sustainability effort, it is almost as though that famous book of the ‘80’s keeps emerging in my mind “All I really needed to learn I learned in Kindergarten”.

Well frankly, as someone who has taken leadership coaching courses, and participated in coaching top level HR leaders, I can tell you as I listened to their issues and situations; somehow communication seemed to be at the root of most of the problems.

Now as I move ahead and learn more about the keys to a successful sustainability plan, while like most things in life, there is really no “silver bullet” , however there is one component that needs to be in place and that is the ability to communicate. Now, not just those up on the soap box preaching the green gospel, but debate, and discussion and pure unhampered feedback.

History has proven that leaders who consistently tell without taking into account feedback get one of two things;

A bunch of “yes sir” subservient followers doing as they are told, marching to one drumbeat.

Or a frustrated group of people who are negatively disposed to much of what they are asked to do.

In the former case the organization loses the capacity to think, and frankly your organizations competitive edge is the human capitol and the innovations they can surface to help your organization not just survive but to thrive and grow and change.

In the latter case the organization has a back biting, destructive and secretive culture that takes years to move away from. Many companies suffer from these two ailments when powerful leaders suppress debate.

So how does this tie back to sustainability planning? A Sustainability plan is like a chameleon in any organization and needs the value of the people in the company to make it work. What works at Subaru might not work at Ford. However, if a business leader comes in and tries to “push” the Green agenda without the proper forum for everyone to express their concerns, or even their input as to how to make it happen etc, then this Green Agenda competes with the other “mission critical” items any management will have already clogging their “to do“list and never get the attention it rightfully deserves.

So, the relationship with good communication and successful sustainability plans are the observation that too many sustainability initiatives fail because of the lack of basic communication inside the organization about how the strategy will work, how it will improve performance, and what role each person should play. I thank Adam Werbach for covering this aspect in his new book- “Strategy for Sustainability”.

In past blog posts I mentioned the need for companies to evaluate or measure their sustainability efforts, both as it relates to the Supply Chain as well as their business and their business partners. Well I must have rubbed the magic lamp as an anonymous “genie” was so kind as to send along an online extensive survey that measures all aspects of a business’ impact on society and the environment.

Yes, you read it right, a free tool called the “B Survey” that assess’ your company’s impact in each of it’s stakeholders and not only that- helps you to improve your social and environmental performance using the tools and best practices embedded in the survey.

Pretty not so bad eh? Take it for a spin- survey.bcorporation.net/register.php

And please peruse the rest of the website, which is chock full of information around companies that are taking the “Green Challenge”.

Organizational Purchasing has really evolved over the last decade. I can recall from 10 years ago when I was selling Oracle e-procurement solutions how purchasing was an administrative function handled by paper pushers, and gate keepers hell bent on getting a good deal. Well procurment is having it's day in the sun as it is evolving into a true strategic role within the Supply Chain of any company.

But let’s face it, the world is “flatter” now, and with a global economy more of the norm, the importance of quality, cost, and delivery has also changed. Well we are on the verge of another “shift” into a procurement world where on-time delivery and lower prices won’t help an organization perpetuate growth and expansion unless there is some intelligence tying it back to a strategy for long term sustainability.

In an interesting perspective, procurement can be an excellent place to help an organization adopt more sustainable methods in a more strategic fashion. It's the first course offered in many Sustainability Certification courses. However, since procurement has been elevated into a strategic role, it has every ability to influence the sustainability and carbon footprint of an organization through multiple channels.

Green Purchasing fundamentals need to align with systems policies and procedures that support green purchasing practices and organization Sustainability. There needs to be clear Business Drivers for Green Purchasing Practices, and the ability to measure these to determine the impact to overall Sustainability Strategies in an organization.

In the next few blog posts I plan on expanding upon this procurement strategy, offering examples of organizations who are in the process as well as those who are further along the path. Subaru has an excellent cradle to grave approach and my research on their efforts was very rewarding. Herman Miller is the pinnacle; with such a great short term and long term plan, offering inspiration for any company to adopt a green plan.

I welcome everyone to comment and help add to the discussion which helps bring awareness of this concept further along and makes it more viable to companies large and small.

We need a Green Revolution, and these strategic tactics can help renew our organizations and thus our country and help us move ahead if we chose to see this as an opportunity.

Take the Green Challenge…….

I recently saw an article how in this current recession, green is the new “black”. No, we are not seeing rooftops laced with solar panels, and there is not a gaggle of hybrids clogging the highways, nor is there a firm shift away from meat eating occurring.

However, lack is always a motivator in adopting some green energy conserving ways, and this is the response we are seeing right now.

With unemployment numbers creeping up, and folks taking pay furloughs, it doesn’t take much for people to adopt less wasteful ways and as we are seeing less consumption of material goods, hence the lack luster retail numbers each month.

So while I am clapping my mini clap with excitement that consumers seem to be using less plastic bags and adopting minor energy saving steps, Leanne Krueger- Braneky of the Greater Philadelphia Sustainable Business Network cautions, that whatever green buying is the direct result of recessionary “pain” which could be short lived, as the average US consumer has a pretty short memory, thus a pretty short window of change.

As we explored in past blog posts relative to “Sustainability” and if I apply Adam Werbach’s Sustainable litmus test- (Must have a Social, Economic, Environmental, Cultural component) this effort is not sustainable, over the long term. Yes, some folks have changed and will not go back to the ways of the past, however, once the economy improves and people have the money to spend, and security in their job, then will they NOT buy/consume/conserve? Will they be so open to take those “green” actions to preserve the environment, which oh by the way is energy efficient etc?

Which brings me to the latest program “Cash for Clunkers” that is getting a lot of press these days. Turn in your older fuel guzzling car for an up to $4500 refund on a new gas efficient vehicle. While this is jump starting auto sales, and the car dealers are all high fiving this program, I have a friend who traded in an old gas guzzling mini van for a Ford Escape (not the hybrid) that get’s 18 MPG. Sure the older vehicle had a greater carbon impact than the Escape, but this program is being motivated by money and is not sustainable for the future.

My desire is that we can get some leadership in the government and corporate America to help produce “real” sustainable programs that can benefit our country moving forward. This effort should help fuel long term business opportunities and innovation versus these short term stimulus jolts that might benefit some short term, but not make a huge impact to many of our citizen’s long term. Being sustainable, is thriving in perpetuity, as Adam’s so notes in his book, and can a cash for clunker program accomplish that?

Let's face it, Americans discard roughly 2.25 million tons of computer, printers, cell phones and other electronics. Seems like the new I-phone comes out and people run buck wild to the apple store to grab the next hot number, but sadly 82% of these once coveted gadgets end up in landfills. If you want to make a difference in your workplace, look to see if your organization has a recycling program in place for electronics. The majority of the electronic devices can be reused or recycled and your program can also include personal electronics from your employee’s homes, so your reach can extend beyond your company, and into the homes of every employee.

There are some exceptions so review the following to better understand what can and cannot be recycled. Sometimes electronics are cast away not because they do not work, but because there is a replacement or a faster etc model. I see this with cellphones and lap tops all the time, however, devices that are still working might be able to be given to someone in need, so this allows the device to be reused versus being recycled- Reusing a device is the highest form of recycling. There are many rotary clubs and other organizations that take cell phones and other electronics that are still functional. Free-cycling sites are another avenue, as they are typically local sites that offer ‘free” products to folks willing to come pick them up. You could post items in bulk and have folks stop by to pick up at specific hours. The National Center for Electronics Recycling, a non-profit group based in West Virginia has a website where you can find more information about drop-off centers- www.electronicrecycling.org. mygreenelectronics.org allows searches by zip code and is sponsored by the Consumer Electronics Association.

Another option is to bring smaller electronics back to big chain stores, such as Best Buy and Staples, who allow you to drop off most electronics for recycling. Also earth911.com is a public-private partnership which lets you search for recycling locations by type of electronic and address.

Items such as TV’s and computer monitors can be classified as hazardous by the federal government, which is why some places might not accept them for recycling. Cathode ray tubes have a decent amount of lead in them and they can leach over time. Batteries also contain heavy metals which are very bad for the environment, so make sure they are disposed of properly as well. RadioShack, Best Buy, Home Depot and Lowes all participate in a national recycling program for rechargeable batteries. Regular alkaline batteries don’t have an easy process to recycle so sadly they still end up in the landfill. Which makes a good point for a business to purchase re-chargeable batteries versus alkaline. By doing so you can make sure there are NO batteries from the business ending up in a landfill.

Check with some of your technology vendors as more are offering free recycling, such as Apple, Dell, Samsung, Sony and IBM. For example, IBM makes it easy and economical for a business to recycle 1 to 250 pieces of IBM and non-IBM equipment. IBM Asset Recovery Solutions now offers a recycling service for assets without market value in accordance with applicable United States federal, state, and local laws.

So as you move forward in your quest to adhere to the three "R"'s Reduce, Re-use, Recycle, make sure you incorporate your electronics into the plan, which might involve bringing up this goal to your vendor when you purchase new equipment. Those that support this effort are more inclined to even extend that "cradle to grave" approach to their manufacturing, so the components might be able to be re-used some day and as such would have a value for the manufacturer to reclaim them.