GREEN BUSINESS VIEWS

Posts Tagged ‘Sustainability Offier’

It seems that every original has its imitations. A genius idea will always generate a variety of look-alikes. The concept of a Certified Green Consultant was made popular by the Green Business League who has trained nearly 300 consultants in the US, Canada, and several countries. The Green Business League had the insight to file for the for the federal trademark for this concept, and now is the only company with rights to this name. A Certified Green Consultant is best defined as a trained professional whose primary task is to assist others to install Green practices. A Certified Green Consultant is not someone, like a LEED AP, who plans and promotes Green buildings. The basic task is to show any family, business, or agency how to practice Green in the daily operation or activities common to all of us.

It doesn’t matter if you own the building or not. What is happening inside and around that building is a huge factor in the over all Green impact of the community. Going Green is about people and how people behave. The Green consultant endeavors to change the behavior which is probably a little more difficult than planning a few Green improvements for the building. Changing our behavior is not as easy to fix as replacing a thermostat.

There are literally hundreds of Green Practices that can be integrated into any business, and many of them are not nearly as expensive as remodeling projects. Energy reduction can be accomplished by buying Energy Star equipment, tearing out old lights, and replacing them with new, more efficient lights. However, there is a good percentage of energy savings that comes from workers who are taught to be more diligent about power use. Failure to turn of lights and equipment when they are not in use is the result of lazy and untrained people. Even a powerstrip for a workstation does no good if the worker doesn’t use it. Dozens of power paks common to all workers steal power every day and add to the monthly electric bill.

A trained Certified Green Consultant uses an extensive assessment program to discover Green practices already in place, and to suggest other Green practices that can be accomplished without radically changing the business process. Just to clarify our terms, we see the Certified Green Consultant as the professional working with many businesses and projects in the community. The Certified Sustainability Officer is more of an in-house professional doing many of the same things as the Green consultant, but within the confines of his or her company’s limits.

Of course, we must mention the “other” look-alike program that crop up routinely on the Internet. Most of these programs offer little more than some online training and the opportunity to subsequently sell their line of Green products to others within the consultant’s influence. Any audit or assessment is merely a ploy to collect enough information to suggest the products that the Eco Consultant, Earth Consultant, or Green Consultant might have to offer. Any reasonable person must discount these programs as little more than a modern version of the old multi-level programs.

A trained Certified Green Consultant is not a product-pusher. He or she offers the initial Green assessment to discover the level of Green compliance already in place. Every Green application is assigned Green Points according to the value of the product or service. The Certified Green Consultant discusses some proposed ideas that will add enough Green Points to achieve a Green business certification using a nationally-recognized standard.  The GBL Green Point system prevents the cheating temptation known as Greenwashing.   This is a very prevalent practice where companies pronounce themselves Green because they install a few token Green ideas.  See the Green Pig Syndrome for further explanation.

Certified Green Consultants may be a new idea today, but the day is approaching when they will be as crucial to business as an efficiency expert or accountant.  There is simply too much involved to hand off this duty to the same person or committee that plans the company picnic.  To determine the effectiveness of the Green consultant or the sustainability officer, we find that the creation of a comprehensive Sustainability Report is the proof of quality of service.  This is echoed in President Obama’s executive order #13514 that requires this of all agencies using sustainability officers.

The fundamentals are now becoming clear for any Green business certification.  There is a need for:

1. Green business certification is proven by a live audit is required to eliminate Greenwashing
2. A Green Consultant or Sustainability Office is needed by all businesses
3. The Green or Sustainability Officer should produce a quality Sustainability Report
4. A Green business is not a static concept but is evaluated at least annually
5. A national standard must apply to all businesses claiming to be Green certified

While Internet logos are popping up nearly every month, only one Green business certification fulfills the spirit of EO13514 and meets the qualification shown above.  The Green Business League now fields more than 300 Certified Green Consultants trained and capable of performing Green assessment and audits.  There national standard cannot be fooled by Greenwashing tactics, and seems likely to endure as the only credible Green business certification in America and in international applications.

Okay, so far Going green has been a lot like a karaoke night at your favorite bar.  Talented or not, people set up to the microphone to “give it a try.”  We all can laugh and poke fun because this is not a serious performance where people paid money to hear great music.  Frankly, expectations are low, and anyone who might have talent seems like an unexpected surprise.

So far, Green and Sustainable efforts have been inclusive of very bad performances, amateur efforts, and guesswork investments into the mysterious world of Green.  As the world evolves, it is becoming evident that our early efforts have been embarrassingly weak and sometimes out of tune with the level of environmental commitment that this world problem demands.

We are now seeing an emergence of a standard for sustainable compliance that has been long overdue.  This standard of performance has been recently seen in the latest executive order that President Obama signed in late 2009.  Executive Order 13514 has set a simplistic format to sustainable business that now applies to governmental agencies.  This same set of standards seems destine to grow and pass over to corporate America as well.

The central aspect of this order is the requirement of a sustainability report.  The sustainability report seems to be the benchmark of a truly environmentally-committed business.  The development of a sustainability report is not a random amalgam of Green ideas.  The sustainability report is a comprehensive review of all factors that impact a company’s environmental plan.  In other words, please realize that the carbon emission is not the singular issue of an environmental plan.  One issue, like recycling is not a plan.  As the executive order illustrates, each of these good ideas are just one of a dozen broad topics that should be considered.

The key to this new reality is that a Sustainability Plan is the primary criteria for a serious business in this new era of Green.  This stands in contrast to the piecemeal approach that has been prevalent so far.  A sustainability plan is not a speculative concept as seen via the demands of the executive order.  It seems that we now have a floor in place that the smart Green professionals have been searching for so long.   Green certification is not merely putting forth a Xeroxed checklist from a local community project.  Any Green program must be a tailored for every company drawing from a reliable set of core disciplines.

Therefore, the way forward now seems much clearer.  A company needs two key items.  First, is installation of a sustainability or Green officer.  Second, the sustainability officer needs to produce a comprehensive sustainability plan that has the scope that has a breadth of environmental considerations and a timeline for implementation.   Such a plan is a graduation of any business from its meandering period of environmentally childhood where guesswork substituted for a knowledgeable plan of action.

Like a tailored suit, the pieces are all known; but the skilled tailor knows how to make it fit the customer.  There is no universal formulation though there will often be common elements seen in each program.  Nonetheless, the sustainability plan is destined to be the new and recommended discipline for the Green business of the future.

The Green Business League has predicted this move to a sustainability plan for more than a year.  This signals the end of many of the mock programs that have been termed “Easy Green.”  Websites that have touted Green business certification by self-assessment program will certainly want to ignore this trend toward honesty and audited results, but the marketplace cannot long endure the “gaming of the system.”  Self-assessment invites abuse and abusive people whereas audited programs are the only way to assure honesty.

Presently, there is one organization that has a trained field force of Certified Green Consultants that conduct an audit of the business each year.  The Green Business league took the long view to this industry and invested heavily into trained consultants who were trained to do life assessments, prepare sustainability reports, and conduct annual audits.  The validation of the Green or sustainable will be the audit of the performance of the sustainability program.  We are beyond the day of good intentions and marginal commitments.  If any sustainability plan is not willing to allow an audit of the results, it is likely that it cannot be considered worth the effort.