GREEN BUSINESS VIEWS

Posts Tagged ‘green certified’

The CSO acronym refers to one of several variations on the role of a sustainability officer.  It could be a Chief Sustainability Officer, Certified Sustainability Officer, or Corporate Sustainability Officer.  They all mean about the same thing, but the understanding of the job of a sustainability officer is still in the refinement process.  The Sustainable Forum describes the Certified Sustainability Officer as someone who develops a sustainability plan tailored to the needs and goals of an individual company.  Secondarily, the CSO also implements the sustainability plan over time.  Going Green is not about perfection, but environmental progress.  Therefore, the CSO’s task is constantly evolving and will take 3-5 years to get most companies to a good compliance level.

Training for the CSO can come from a four year college program, but without all the ancillary courses required by the college, can be offered as a credible and powerful training course via distance learning.  The core curriculum is 15 modules and over 550 pages of text.  This way, a company can literally train their own CSO in-house and bring the Green programming into the structure in  nearly seamless fashion.

The CSO is not left as a sole environmental voice in the wilderness.  The Sustainable Forum is structured to provide an ongoing support system.  In many areas, monthly live gatherings are planned, but there is also a version of this training and network offered online.  A Certified Sustainability Office is an in-house “Agent of Change” that will seek the best path to Green certification and company profitability as well.  Area CSOs work with Certified Green Consultants who organize The Sustainable Forum in their community, and provide ongoing support to all CSOs in their area.

To make sense of a very confusing subject, a national point system allows the CSO to conduct a baseline assessment for a company.  Once the baseline is established, a sustainability plan can be devised for the company that schedule environmental progress over the year.  Therefore, there is a system in place for support, assessment, and certification that is transparent, nationally-applied, and has an audited process that can be respected.

Carbon accounting is coming, and a myriad of other environmental mandates will fall on businesses of all types.  As environmental compliance issues increase, the role of the CSO will become a valuable asset to all businesses.  Your company need not hire a college graduate at $80,000 per year.  Train a CSO for your company in a simple and structured fashion.  When the training is complete, your sustainability officer will have the ability and support to develop a sustainability plan that reflects your company’s mission and options.  When done correctly, the company will discover that this kind of planning will also save the company a lot of money, reduce concerns of litigation, and solve regulatory issues before they hit.

To learn more about the Certified Sustainability Officer visit http://www.CertifiedSustainabilityOfficer.com.  The training program is described there.  Companies are strongly encouraged to train up a CSO within their company today.  Face moving mandates are already on their way.  Some will be by regulation, and others will require a Green certification to compete for bids.  Fortune 500 companies have already installed CSOs because they know what is coming.  It will not be long until every kind of business needs their own sustainability officer and sustainability plan.

Have you heard about something called “Green Equity?”  If not, it isn’t hard to understand.  We know that real estate has value, and in a good market that value tends to climb year after year.  The difference between what you owe and what the house will sell for is your equity.  If the home is badly treated, however, the value of the home can be adversely affected.  So, when it comes time to sell the home, there is often a frantic effort to fix everything up so that it will bring the best price.  Why bother?  Well, selling a beat up house compared to a nicely kept house is going to have some serious financial consequences.

Let me switch to talk about “Green Equity” in terms that I think anyone still curious about the Green premium will understand.  First of all, let me ask what will be the impact of $5.00/gal on the sale price of a big, gas-hungry car (10+ mpg) compared to a fuel-efficient car (30+ mpg)?   Will the price of the gas-hungry car go down while the fuel efficient car goes up?   The answer should be obvious to anyone who understands market forces.  Another way to explain the Green premium is would you pay one price for paint that fills your house with toxic fumes, or would you pay $5 more for similar paint that will not adversely affect the health of your family?  I think that the answer is (or should be) obvious.  If you figure the average cost of $250 to $500 per month for electric, heat, water, sewage, and trash; the annual bill is $3000 to $6000 a year.

Consider a normal house built in the standard way.  We can calculate the standard cost of fuel, electricity, water, and even waste for most homes; and that becomes the expected financial add-on that we all figure comes with home ownership.  On top of the cost of the purchase price for the home is the operational cost to live in that home.  Year after year, we pay those costs without much thought.  However, if you added up the cumulative costs for the running of a home; could it be a price that would shock us to a new reality?  The ten year cost of running a home could easily equal a quarter to a third of the original purchase price.  A $200,000 house could run $60,000 in additional payments over time.

What if those operational costs were 25% less, 40% less, 50% less or more?  Would a $30,000 savings make one of two homes on the same block more attractive to buyers and bring a premium price?  It is a question hardly worth asking.  It is also important to realize that these expenses are not fixed.  The cost of energy and other necessary services are expected to go up, and go up dramatically.  This is a painful reality, that increases the premium value of a Green certified home.

There is another consideration that families will also value.  Heath is a precious commodity, and we are learning more and more each day about how toxic-laden homes are harming the children that we are supposed to nurture.  With illnesses like allergy, asthma, ADD, ADHD and autism on the rise; there is broad speculation that these problems may be engendered in our children by exposure to chemicals and toxin from the day of conception forward.  Frankly, no one can speculate on the price of a healthy, happy child.  Here again, if there is the expectation that a Green home is better for children in their formative years, what parent wouldn’t choose a Green home over a standard home.

Green Equity, then is a value of a home realized in many ways over the years of occupancy.  If that Green home is maintained as a Green home, it will continue to add the Green premium value to the second, and third buyer as well.  The Green Legacy Home offers something found no where else.  Beside the construction of a superior home, the operation of the home is maintained year after year with the assistance of a Certified Green Consultant from the Green Business League.  Builders, sellers, and real estate professionals are encouraged to think about using the Green Legacy Home program for any home that has been built or remodeled as a Green home.  Find out more at the Green Certified Homes website.

As more and more cities, communities, and websites offer their own version of a Green certification, past experience reminds me that these eager promoters will not be around a year or two from now.   Think about how these programs get started in a rash of enthusiasm and a limited pool of money.  Communities receive grants or raised money to fund a local Green or Sustainability Committee, volunteers stepped up, and someone discovered a set of guidelines that they borrowed from the Internet.  The local media reported the emergence of this new committee offering “Free Green Certifications,” and businesses fill out Xeroxed forms to get qualified.

A year or so later, the funding isn’t as large or available.  Volunteers for the sustainability committee are busy with issues of their own.  After all, the committee members have real jobs like a picture framing company, an insurance guy, and a chamber member who saw this as a chance to get in front of new customers anyway.  The good intentions have faded, and now anyone interested in the Green business certification is handed some stapled forms and told to fill them out, turn them in, and they’ll be approved when someone gets around to looking over the paperwork.

This is the nature of free programs.  They are filled with good intentions, and then turn into something that becomes valueless.  Free services may work in church, but they do not work nearly as well in the business world.  If they do, expect the later end to be just a tool for selling something to the free enrollments.

Of course, there are the website certifications that blossom overnight with very polished and well written claims of being the leader in Green business certifications.  We must wonder how many of these “leaders” there can be.  One popular tactic is to flood the directory with hundreds of free listings that are intended to fool visitors of their immense success.  Do some due diligence and see if most of these listed companies actually paid money to get on this membership program, but is now asking you for $500 to $1200.

Website certifications are like Internet sex.  It is not real, and it isn’t right.  Of course, you can help yourself, but isn’t the real thing better?  Crude example perhaps, but nearly every website Green certification is little more than an overt scam.  This is easy to prove.  Take a real look at the integrity issues these programs conveniently sidestep.  They conveniently post up false directories, they make false claims saying that “self-assessment” is the same as an audit, and they charge $500 for a $5 logo.  Yet, there are people falling for it because it is just so easy.  Hence, we call these programs “Easy Green” certifications.

Every certification in the business world comes as an earned process.  Only Green Business League maintains an army of Certified Green Consultants who literally work with, guide, and audit all GBL Green Business Certifications.  They have NEVER offered Green certification by an Internet purchase, and they never will.  If you go for a LEED certification, you will not earn it by an Internet purchase and self-assessment form.  ISO (International Standards Organization) does not work with companies they have never seen or verified.  What if Underwriters Laboratories took a cut-rate approach.  Send in a picture, pay a fee, and your product will have UL approval.  Stupid right?  Yet, we seem to believe that a business can be Green certified by paying a fee and downloading a certification with the same ease as an iTune.

Where will your certification be in a few years?  In many cases, the website will go vacant because the “Good Days” of the scam have passed and consumers reject this latest form of blatant greenwashing.   Local committees will run out of money and available people to do the job intended.  So, these program will come and go like summer rain showers.  The real programs will still be around.  Part of the reason is that they charge a fee for what they do.  They have real people behind the website claims who are actively working to make the world a better place.

The Green Business League is more than a leader in Green business certification.  They are the “Real Deal” with a membership of committed businesses, the largest certifying field force in the country, and they will be a certification that grows in value year after year.   One of the underlying tenants of sustainability is “Doing the Right Thing.”  Some call it Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR).   Free programs will fail in time because it is their nature.  Profiteering websites were built in a week, and will disappear when their scam is finally public knowledge.  If you are going to Go Green, do it with the Green Business League.  This company simply does it right and will be around long after the others are forgotten.

Believe it or not, many janitorial services pay only a mild lip-service to the Green program.  Obviously, some are better than the rest of the Green services; and others are worse.  Unfortunately, there is just no good way to discover the quality of the janitorial service until they have been engaged.  This is due to the age-old practices of the RFP and bid process.  Area janitorial services are generally invited to bid on a project.  An RFP is supposed to keep the bids focused on the same demands; but ultimately, the real decision comes down to the bid opening program where the winner (usually the low bidder) gets the job.

This arcane process has been the way things have been done for decades.  Of course, if the firm is large enough to have good sales people, then the cleaning jobs are influenced by gifts, golf junkets, and paid-for perks.  These two methods of securing a janitorial service need a third option, and the rise of Green cleaning concerns should allow for there to be something more than the lowest-bidder or the best-concealed bribe.

The Green Business League maintains a field force of more than 300 Certified Green Consultants, and each one is taught that the Indoor Air Quality is the starting point of a Green (healthy) office.  Other issues like energy, water and waste management are also included in this very comprehensive Green business certification process.  While some may overlook the important of the janitorial service (in-house or outsourced), janitorial services contribute strongly to a healthy or unhealthy office.

As mentioned, finding a Green certified janitorial service is not as simple as looking at a braggadocios website.  Whether a service is Green or not cannot be proven by self-promotion.  The Green Business League is developing a referral list of Green janitorial services in every metropolitan area.  To be considered for this referral list, a company must request inclusion in this list by emailing the review division.  (review@greenbusinessleague.com)

In the Green Business League system, every company seeking Green business certification must acquire 100 points through “Green Practices.”  15 points are allocated when there is a Green certified janitorial service involved.  For a company at 85 points, there is a strong motivation to consider using a Green janitorial service.   The next plateau is 200 points to reach the gold level certification, and this points-driven system is all about making continued improvement as a Green business.

There is no promise of business made in this system, but the advance of Green business expectations and pending regulations means that more companies are aware of the need for Greening their business, and frankly, the janitorial service costs equals a transition of money already being spent.  Therefore, it seems like a basic and straight-forward solution that should cost the company next to nothing to implement.  Make note, however, that not all self-appointed Green janitorial services are as Green as they claim.  Some even post Green logos on their website that were designed in-house or bought off the Internet.  When you see this kind of misrepresentation and greenwashing, move away from these less-than-honest services.

There are several Green janitorial certifying programs that can be respected.  Companies who see the future and care about their community are reputable firms that have obtained their certification properly.  This are the kind of services that the Green Business League hopes to recommend to each of the hundreds of GBL Green certified businesses.   The size of the company is not as important as the ability to serve the client well.

As a final note, Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) is a major piece of the Green and sustainable workplace.  OSHA and EPA suggest that poor indoor air quality causes a $60 billion loss to American businesses in employee productivity.  Poor air quality exacerbates health-related issues and contributes to headache, lethargy, and minor ailments.   Though a hidden factor in the cost of operating a business, this is still a very serious cost to every business.  Like it or not, your employees are one of the biggest business investments that any company makes.  Even a 5-10% increase or decrease in overall company performance has an impact on the bottom line.

Companies wishing to obtain a Green Assessment by a Certified Green Consultant are encouraged to call the office or email a request to office@greenbusinessleague.com.  Janitorial services wishing to become one of the firms on the Green janitorial services list should email: review@greenbusinessleague.com

Taking a federal courthouse Green is not an easy task.  This process began many months before the actually audit was conducted.  All that hard work paid off in a big way as the Gerald R Ford Federal Building and Court House earned 540 point under a Green Business League review making it a “Titanium Level” Green business certification.   The Gerald R Ford Federal Building is located in Grand Rapid, MI and have been served by the Hope Network janitorial services guided by David Bouck, a Certified Green Consultant.

This build has already made strides as a Green facility.  It has earned an Energy Star rating.  A full energy audit has been conducted, and advanced lighting has been installed.  Motion detectors and timers control certain lights, and powerstrips are used to prevent phantom energy loss.

HEPA vacuums replace older vacuums in the cleaning process, and Green cleaning products are used throughout the building.  The building is being painted with low-VOC paint, and floor mats at entry areas to trap dirt and debris before it gets into the building.  Recycling programs include more than trash.  Computer equipment is recycled, recycled carpeting is used for new carpeting projects, and a water filtration system eliminates the need for disposable water bottles.

On the outside, xeriscaping lowers the demand for watering, fertilizer, and pesticides.  Drip irrigation allows plants to thrive while conserving water.  Paper reduction strategies can reduce waste as well, and the building buys non-chlorine-bleached paper.

Executive Order 13514 was signed last fall by President Obama requiring federal agencies to apply a variety of environmental practices.  This is not an overnight process, not it is a simple process.  The executive order requires that a sustainability officer prepare a sustainability plan for each facility.  David Bouck, as a Certified Green Consultant, was able to perform a variety of tasks for the Gerald R Ford building, and has greatly assisted in the compliance of the building.

The Green Business League reports great pride in certifying an outstanding example of a Green operation in Grand Rapids, MI.  Green certification is a valuable asset to any business.