Come join us for Practically Natural, a high-energy, interactive event that will help you make informed choices for your health and our environment. The event will take place on Saturday, May 30, 2009 at Prestonwood Country Club in Cary, NC. Visit the web site for more information: http://www.practicallynatural.net/.

I strongly believe that business has a significant role to play in the advancement of sustainable practices during the mounting challenges facing the planet today and that through better strategic planning, more accurate measurement of outcomes, and encouragement of innovation, many of the world’s issues can more directly be addressed. People, planet, profits: There is a direct connection between the quality of life of people in companies and the community with the quality and condition of the environment and the economic stability and growth potential for that company and community. This interdependent relationship is a critical success factor for you in understanding the system of sustainability.

Consider every person and every organization to reside on a spectrum of sustainability and you are either at level 1, the lowest level—doing nothing, or at some other point along the spectrum. To survive and thrive, you must move from one point on that spectrum to the next based on the push and pull of stakeholder expectations and regulations. Moreover, you need to create a process for going beyond compliance and continually improving from any starting point along that spectrum to maximize the opportunities of an emerging green market.

Try something new: Rather than deploying your green initiatives in a spray and pray method, hoping something sticks with stakeholders and reclaim some of your cost, consider reflecting on a few questions and take a few baby steps first to prevent losing time, money, and possibly respect from employees, customers, buyers, and other stakeholders:

• Reflect on the implications of sustainability. Take the time to explore the meaning and implications of what sustainability will signify in your sector and the region you are in, especially in terms of availability of products and value to customers.
• Plan ahead. Consider the budget and time of yourself and others to ensure you don’t run out of either funds or energy before you’ve had a chance to complete your project. Take the time to reflect, plan, and ask advice from stakeholders to avoid an embarrassing or costly mistake and deploy green projects with confidence.
• Implement at the level of your ability. Instead of taking on all 100 things to go green—choose the right project, at the right time, and with the right outcomes. Whether it’s a company of one or thousands of employees, going green is fast becoming a competitive factor in strategic planning and it’s easy to fall into the trap of spray and pray—try everything and hope something sticks.

The commitment to community and its economic, social, and environmental well-being is evolving: It’s not just talk now but a critical success factor for sustainability to be part of the DNA of company. Each sustainability initiative has measurable financial value and contributes above the bottom line.

Therefore, for any company thinking about improving their carbon footprint or implementing green initiatives across their enterprise, serious consideration needs to be made to ensure the bottom line does not interfere with the triple bottom-line to the degree that nobody wins. Below are three steps you can consider for realigning your business relationships:

1. Choose your green project according the value of your key stakeholders: The buyers. Understanding your customers is the first lesson in business and it continues to be the lesson learned for sustainability projects. Don’t fall into the trap of choosing projects that may look good to customers without providing them real value. A landscaping company may choose to offer a non-toxic fertilizer alternative at twice the price rather than switching their trucks to bio-diesel. It may look good to have an bio-diesel fleet, but the real value is in eliminating toxic chemicals from customers’ lawns.
2. Choose your new supplier according to their ability to follow through. Compare your supply chain with all of the participants with the current business relationships and carefully research alternatives that have authentic results and can provide adequate supply and service. Too often the new green businesses have difficulty scaling up when suddenly demand increases before they are ready to grow. A restaurant may want to source local eggs that are from free-range chickens but the price and supply may fluctuate if the new supplier can’t scale their operation for greater volume.
3. Make your change to a new supplier incrementally to ensure customer value and supplier growth. Decide on the period of payback your enterprise needs to meet through a supplier change without too much disruption in quality or cost. Initially, it may be necessary to offer alternatives to customers to ease the greater majority to the alternative source of products into a slightly higher price. The greater benefits realized for environmental and social impact can then be more effectively communicated as you make the transition.

Understanding the importance of managing your sustainability plans is increasingly becoming a business imperative, and knowing how to effectively choose, implement, and sustain new green suppliers is becoming a competitive advantage. Within a short period of time, it’s possible to see new growth and new relationships emerge from one decision you make as a business leader. As a result, not only does your carbon footprint get reduced, you could also inspire a chain reaction throughout your product lifecycle, and inspire change in your competition as well. And that’s a good thing!

Agenda for Thursday, May 7, 2009:
8:30 am – 9:00 am Registration

9:00 am – 9:15 am Opening Remarks

9:15 am – 11:45 am Ordinarily Amazing, Sustainability, and Entrepreneurs

Speaker: Kristi Turner, SVP of Marketing for Cam Lanier and Owner of Ordinarily Amazing

10:45 am – 11:00 am Break

11:00 am – 12:00 pm Panel discussion with local entrepreneurs on Sustainable Growth

· Moderator: Bob Kingery, Southern Energy Management (tentative)

· Erik Lensch, Innovative Solar Solutions

· Dereck McGarry, Refresco, PLLC

· Lia Lucero, Showpiece Enterprises

· Rich Deming, Fat City Formulae (tentative)

12:00 pm – 12:30 pm Lunch

Speakers: Brief comments from local and state organizations focused on sustainability

12:30 pm – 2:00 pm What is Smart Green? Strategies for Business Results

Speaker: Jonathan Estes, Strategic Measures, Inc., Author of Smart Green: How to Implement Sustainable Business Practices in Any Industry—and Make Money

Entrepreneurial Speaker: Eric Henry, CEO of TS Designs

2:00 pm – 3:00 pm Facilitated open dialog by Astrid Chirinos, Calor Energy, and Kristi Turner

In a US Climate Change Program report from December 2008, scientists have had to reset the clock for expected impacts from climate change. Many of the original projections expected to occur decades from now are now occurring, and climate changes are accelerating at an exponential rate. More regulation is in the pipeline, and many companies are not prepared to comply with the new requirements. Meanwhile, consumers, buyers, and other stakeholders in the market supply chain are beginning to demand more accountability from their business relationships. Some questions being asked are: Where were the components made? How were the workers compensated? How were the raw materials extracted? How far was the product shipped? What happens to the product when it’s no longer usable?

So how do you respond? I have found there to be several types of reactions to climate change and the opportunities presented with becoming more sustainable:

The first response is like an ostrich whose head is in the sand—hear nothing and so do nothing. These companies may be neither immediately nor directly affected by the push and pull of regulations and consumer demand, so they choose to ignore any calls for changes that don’t directly impact their business today.

A second response is treating sustainability like a fad. The direction and culture of the organization remains the same but it runs a few green projects up the flagpole to see if it attracts attention.

A third response is considering sustainability like a trend. For a short period of time, an organization adopts language, strategies, and methodologies that appear to be sustainable but the basic mission and organizational goals remain the same—style over substance.

A fourth response is when an organization decides to make incremental changes over time for real and lasting change towards a sustainable model. This organization may take years to make a change but like the tortoise against the hare, eventually wins.

A final response could be a paradigm shift when an organization stops its practices altogether and recreates itself in a completely sustainable model, like a caterpillar to a butterfly, with many of its original methods, mission, and culture are indistinguishable from its original form.

Whatever the response to climate change, we certainly need to make conscious decisions about our impact in order to survive these challenging times.

The concept was born out of the realization that at this stage of our global history, whether we realize it or not, we are all on the spectrum of response to how we create a more sustainable world.  On a scale of 1 to 10, there are many people, organizations, and governments at level one, while others are much further along.  It is important to realize where your organization is on the spectrum – determine your own Level of Greenth – but also the Level of your community and region.

For example, I had interviewed many companies that provide green building services in and around the Triangle area of North Carolina.  Most of them indicated that not until 2006 – with a groundswell in interest from buyers, other developers, suppliers, and state government in the form of incentives – was it possible to consider being profitable.  Many of these same companies had tried to introduce green building concepts 10 and 15 years ago without success. “There was no interest, no market.”  Now there are green building supply stores and recycling centers cropping up, new demand for solar water heaters, rain catchment systems, and alternatives for sustainable landscaping with enough consumer interest to be profitable.  As an expression of the region’s Level of Greenth, Bon Appetit recently designated Durham-Chapel Hill, NC as “America’s Foodiest Small Town” where restaurants source more local and organic products for their menus than any other.

The concept of the Level of Greenth simply means discovering where you and your community are at on the spectrum of sustainability awareness and choosing practical, achievable goals to steadily move up the spectrum to ensure stability and the ability to follow through with increasing changes year to year.  Don’t be daunted by the advances being made in other regions or compare the levels of change from one state to another.  Find the strength of your community or region, plan for actionable goals and capitalize on them – such as the collection of methane from the poultry, dairy, beef, and pork industries in North Carolina which could position the state as a major biofuels producer.

At the conference, Gore highlighted the need for leadership in business and politics to improve our environment and our economy. As reported by Business Wire: “Renewable energy production, high-speed transport systems and infrastructure construction and management are the best ways to stimulate the global economy and help address the climate crisis,” Gore continued. “We need leadership in both the political and business sectors. The close working relationship between Spain and the U.S. in these areas is a model for all others to follow.”

Estes, CEO of Strategic Measures Inc. in Chapel Hill, wrote Smart Green to educate entrepreneurs and highlight examples of sustainable development within the business community, and to demonstrate how other leaders can implement sustainable practices while continuing to be profitable.

Smart Green addresses several major questions, including: What exactly is sustainability? How do you build a strategic plan to achieve it? What are the benefits of marketing your green initiatives to customers? What key issues will entrepreneurs face while working towards sustainability? How can you foster public and private partnerships to achieve commonly shared goals for sustainable outcomes?

Entrepreneurs are the risk-takers of the business world. But today there’s a massive gap between what businesses have to offer and what environmentally conscious consumers want—namely, green products and services rendered with social equity in mind. Smart Green provides an analytical and verifiable model to help entrepreneurs fill this gap while ensuring profitability and lessening the environmental impacts of doing business.

For more information regarding Smart Green, please contact Rita Leadem at Rita@StrategicMeasuresInc.com.

At the end of his presentation, Gore alluded to the need for moral courage to be able to face each of these daunting challenges now and within our current generation. While writing the book Smart Green in 2008, no one could have predicted the severity of the economic crash in the fall, nor could anyone continue to see the world the same as one time-tested company fell after another. It was as if I had written a book with one world view and overnight I had to cut, rewrite, and re-think every section to accommodate a new world.

One element that remained the same in both versions of my book-and consistent with each of the three crises Gore spoke of-is the interdependence between the environment, the economy, and the betterment of society. I saw it first-hand while traveling in Port Harcourt, Nigeria and I see evidence of it now on Main Street in America. I believe our fourth crisis is our need for integrity as individuals, organizations, and governments to implement changes for lasting value and authentic change.

How do we start? Reflect on the three meanings of “integrity”: First, we are most familiar with the meaning as being honest, trustworthy, and truthful. What could be more evident about the need for more transparency and honesty than the way some leading corporate, financial, and political leaders have behaved, leading to many of the negative impacts in the environment and the economy which has directly exacerbated worsening social conditions.

Second, integrity means “oneness” or “wholeness”. We are all part of a global system that has the double-edged sword of encouraging and discouraging growth. Any changes we make or someone else in another country makes, for better or for worse, will reverberate throughout the system. Realizing our oneness and the implications of the power of the system will accelerate our creativity and effectiveness as a world community. Third, integrity means “strength” like that found in a building, a government, or a business-structural integrity.

We each have to face this fourth challenge of the need for integrity before the other challenges because, without integrity, I believe our efforts will not have the necessary lasting effect. Gore mentioned that business leaders are the keys to helping define the future and for innovation. With integrity, I believe this to be possible.

Think about it: Why is installing a solar array in the same category as recycling cans? One can cost tens of thousands of dollars while the other is virtually free. In the rush to go green because of the pull of customer demand and the push of new compliance rules, many organizations leap before they think and spend energy, money, and valuable time for green initiatives that may have nothing to do with your business, your customers could care less, and the outcomes are not visible because they aren’t measurable.

Try something else: Rather than deploying your green initiatives in a spray and pray method, hoping something sticks with your stakeholders and you can reclaim some of your cost, consider reflecting on a few questions and take a few baby steps first to prevent losing time, money, and possibly respect from your employees, customers, buyers, and other stakeholders.

Question 1: How do you define green?
It’s a simple question, but take the time to explore the meaning of going green and the implications it will signify in your business sector and the region you are in, especially in terms of availability of products and value to your customer. Ask your customers or your buyers. You’ll be surprised by some of the answers and suggestions for your business.

Question 2: What time and resources do I have available for green initiatives?
Again, another simple question but you must consider the budget and time of yourself and others to ensure you don’t run out of either funds or energy before you’ve had a chance to complete your project. Consider also how you will sustain the effort after the first attempt.

Once you have reflected on these questions, consider the following steps:

1. Choose no more than two green projects that you know you can support and maintain. It doesn’t have to be an expensive project but choose a project that makes sense for your business that may not be something as visible as a grove of windmills on your property.
2. Keep an accounting of time, resources, and outcomes in terms of customer responses, stakeholder buy-in, and employee opinion. Were there any cost savings? Increase in sales? Positive changes in employee morale?
3. After deployment of your initiative, revisit the questions of how you define green for your business and what resources do you have to maintain your current project and possibly add another. Keep in mind that your customers and buyers could be your best source of new ideas and support.

So instead of taking on all 100 things you can do to go green – choose the right project, right time, and with the right outcomes. Whether your company is just you or you have thousands of employees, going green is fast becoming a competitive factor in your strategic planning. Take the time to reflect, plan, and ask advice from stakeholders to avoid an embarrassing or costly mistakes – and deploy your green projects with confidence.