GREEN BUSINESS VIEWS

Posts Tagged ‘green business certification’

It is an old saying, “You never miss the water until the well goes dry“. In many parts of the world, water is plentiful and safe. However, there are many places where water is scarce and not safe. 97.5% is salt water, and the rest of the water isn’t always accessible or drinkable.

Scientists tell us that less than 1% of the world’s water supply is drinkable or potable. A good portion of that water is underground, in snow and ice, or in lakes.

Any pollution of the water supply only aggravates a very serious world issue. This belies that fact of an exploding world population. Suffice it to say that we all know countless areas of the world where water is as scarce as gold, and nearly as precious. This gives rise to the need for water management for families and companies regardless of available supply in the community.

The good news is that water is being replenished day after day, but it is under more and more stress. As communities develop, populations increase, and manufacturing grow; the demand for water will be potentially be the next environmental crisis. Like so many resources, there is a need to treat water as a precious commodity.

Without beating this subject to death, we have all see countless examples of wasteful water use. There are sprinkler systems running in a rainstorm, or a broken sprinkler shooting a 20 foot arc of water into the street.

Hotels and other businesses with large grassy areas often have hidden leaks that can pour hundreds of gallons of water into the soil. The loss of water from the water source to the end user is less than 30% of what enters the system. The older the system, the worse the water loss will be.

Replacing municipal water systems will be very expensive and a major intrusion. There are many things that nearly any home or facility could do to improve the waste of yet another commodity.

There is one statement that tends to evoke a knee-jerk reaction, and that occurs when I say that the reputable Green business programs have had less than a 3-5% penetration into the marketplace.  This does include such good programs as LEED, ISO, and Green Business League that perform live audits instead of some token programs that use self-assessment or Internet forms.  The honest programs always prove their value by requiring a live audit and benchmark for achievement.  The rest are simply not credible.

As for the statement of 3-5% penetration into the business, the 2009 U.S. census showed that there were over 27 million business in the United States.  So, we have a fair starting point for the further facts that will be related.

According to an April 2009 report by the U.S. Green Building Council, they state that there are 2,476 LEED certified projects and 19,524 registered projects, distributed in over 90 countries.  ISO reported in 2002 that the of ISO 9000 total stood at 510,616 in 161 countries.  While both of these numbers are impressive in the progress being made, it seems obvious that the penetration of the Green business program is a small percentage of the U.S. or world marketplace.

Look at the major cities.  Another LEED provided statistic relates the extent of LEED buildings in major metropolitan areas:

1 – Chicago, IL — 88
2 – Portland, OR — 73
3 – Seattle, WA — 63
4 – Washington, D.C. — 57
5 – Atlanta, GA — 53
6 – San Francisco, CA — 50
7 – New York City, NY– 46
8 – Grand Rapids, MI — 44
9 – Los Angeles, CA — 40
10 – Boston, MA — 38

So, while these numbers are not critical of LEED or ISO, the concern for the real impact of our efforts are real.  Businesses are slow to the process, at best.  There seems to be a pressure to make progress combined with an inability to accomplish the task in a meaningful way.

Making the program accessible to whole cities, chambers of commerce, or business organizations allows communities to install a powerful Green business program at literally no cost to the community or the customer.  Fees apply only for requested training, auditing, or certification programs.

While popular in Europe, the International Standards Organization (ISO) is lesser known in the United States.  One of the common questions encountered is how does ISO work and isn’t the ISO 14000 a Green certification.  ISO certainly is an impressive organization, and it may be best understood as having an emphasis on quality control and risk management.    An ISO review is designed to examine and test every part of the company’s process to assure that the company’s program is “transparent” and “reliable.”

When companies are doing business across borders and must rely on the ability of a supportive company to perform, the ISO certification allows the transparency of process to be demonstrated.  The chances of a failure by the company is also part of the system.  This is why the layman might look at the ISO program as a quality control program more than a guide for the basic operation.  With the myriad of companies in existence and the infinite variations of their process, ISO is not a conformity initiative as much as it is a reliability examination of the system.

ISO certification is exhaustive and expensive.  The apparent goal is to review and evaluate every step of the company’s process and suggest improvements that will insure efficiency, reliability, and smart operation.  This is something of value for inter-related systems that would be adversely affected by the faults, delays, and failures of supporting companies.  Consider it like an audit of a bank to make sure that the bank is operating properly and the money in trust is handled well.  We depend upon bank, and the regulatory systems are to assure that banks do not fail because of poor management.  The same could be said of the airline industry.   We count on everyone doing their job and doing their job at a superior level of performance.  The constant audit and inspection of the airline system is in our best interest.

ISO is not designed to provide the systems to run the company but to measure the reliability and efficiency of the operation.  Therefore, with the introduction of ISO 14000, questions arise as to whether this is the new standard for a Green or sustainable company?  Not really, but the ISO 14000 is certainly a very tough review (or test) or whether your company is stepping up to sustainable standards.  In other words, a test is different from the preparation for the test.

In a very practical manner, the any Green business program should require what is now known as the “Sustainability Plan.”  This is the first step in developing a Green or sustainable company.  It is also more practical and much more affordable than the ISO program.  However, if and when a company chooses to move on to the ISO certification, there is now a program in place that can be measured and even improved by examining the quality of the program along with the general operation of the company.

ISO will not provide a business plan for your company, but it will measure its effectiveness.  ISO will not provide a marketing or financial plan for the company, but will test whether what is in place it credible enough for other companies to trust.  While  I am sure that ISO would explain the comparison more profoundly than I would, there is a need to simplify and illustrate the value of each system.  Both have merit, and yet the process seems to need a little bit of “layman’s logic” to help American businesses understand how to make these new applications work for their unique business applications.

Let’s visit the bizarre world of marketing where the concept of “Reality is What We make It” is a serious business.  In the show, “Wag the Dog” with Robert Dino and Dustin Hoffman, the story line was the incredible belief that perceptions could be manipulated to the point of mass deception and the corruption of national policy.  Out of thin air, a story could be manufactured and used for less-than-honest purposes.  While it is just another movie plot, it has foundations in reality.

The manipulation of Green has had similar less-than-honest promoters as well.  Some have set out to purposely paint their company Green while not caring for the truth.  One Pennsylvania business owner reported, “I doubt really care about all the environmental stuff.  I just want to be Green because it is gaining popularity.”

Some companies like the “Do It Yourself” approach and renovate their website and advertising now to show that the company is now all bout Green.  Don’t ask them how they got there because it quickly turns into an embarrassing conversation.

In the same genre of blatant Greenwashing are the dozens of website based certifications.  From an obscure office and a negligible staff of consisting of web programmers, these Green certifications appear online with glowing credentials, harvested lists of “customers,” and a very environmental-sounding message.

Here’s the fact, if you can buy your Green certification off the Internet with the same ease as an iTune, it is a scam and it is a Greenwashing program.  Worse yet, these company include you in the scam.  When you post there nicely-designed logo on your company’s website or door, you are lying too.   There was no audited process, there was no independent review, there may not have been a shred of truth in those online questionnaires.  What there was was an online transaction where a $5 logo was bought for $500.  Such is the nature of these scams.  It is a carefully crafted series of lies that seems to actually make sense when we don’t have your ethics or common sense engaged.

Greenwashing is fundamentally, lying about the truth of the Green value of what actually exists.  So, here’s a question.  If a customer asks one of these Internet Green certified customers asked, “How did you EARN your Green certification?”; will they answer honest and say “We bought it off the Internet, filled in a few forms that none verified, and now we’re Green certified!”   …. or will they lie!

The very presence of Green certifications about over the Internet is about on the same level of cyber-sex.  It isn’t real and it isn’t right.  Of course, we all know its out there and there are many that are happy for it.  But, can they really say that it is as good as the real thing?  There are cyber pets, cyber dating, cyber golf, and avatars that allow people to pretend to be what they are not.  Cyber Green is not reality and should not be passed off by businesses as jsut as good as the real thing.

Consider installing a Certified Sustainability Officer in your company to insure the best method for make your company environmentally-complaint, more sustainable, and more profitable.  It is easy to train a sustainability officer within the company’s staff who will apply appropriate measures to the Green program.  Remember, “What is not measured, cannot be Proved.”

Imagine the extrapolated vision of the Green business problem, if you will.  If Green businesses are left to any device to earn a Green status, what is the value of Going Green?  As it sits today, a Green business can self-certify in the most ridiculous ways imaginable.   The first way to self-certification is to make any of a dozen Green improvements to the business, and to declare your business “Green.”  Perhaps the business now uses recycled paper and prints on both sides to conserve paper use.  Meritorious, but far from a serious effort to transition to a Green operation.   This is what is now termed a “Token Green” approach to Green business, and it is also part of the well-known form of Greenwashing.

The second misguided process for Green business certification is purchasing a Green business certification online.  The fees range between $500 to $1500 depending on the size of the company, but don’t be fooled by a well-designed website offering an impressive logo.  These operations are obviously money-driven websites that justify their contribution to society by asking their “members” to complete various forms of self-assessment online.  Regardless of the obvious invitation to “Game the System” offered by these online Green business certifications, hundreds upon hundreds of businesses will sign up for these scam-like programs.

Frankly, both of these forms of clandestine Green certifications are designed for ONE PRIMARY REASON, and that is to fool and deceive the public.  Consumers who are seeking to spend their money with reputable Green businesses do not want to be deceived by a greenwashing program that fosters unproven Green claims.  What prevents any misguided business from paying the fee, filling in the forms with lies, and proudly displaying the purchased logo to unsuspecting customers?   Nothing, because the goals these websites set are negligible standards intended to attract more gullible businesses to pay a big fee for a pretty logo.

In a day of crisis issues and calls for transparency and ethics to properly address these world-threatening concerns, shouldn’t there be a backlash of sharp rebuke for unproven and falsified claims of environmental compliance?  Would we not be appalled at a doctor with false credentials treating us when we were sick?  Does anyone want an amateur working on their car when the only real credentials were a correspondence course that he had his brother do for him?   What if the meat department of your local grocery no longer required a physical inspection because a worker had completed an online certification course?  Ridiculous, right?

Green business certification by self-acclamation or by online purchase is cheating at worst and greenwashing at best. Nonetheless, these two methods of Green certification are popular and widely practiced.  Business people are pragmatic and tend toward the expedient solution when it seems feasible. Expedience is often the fool’s path because the environment is such a serious issue.  Eventual exposure will cause a serious backlash when the public eventually discovers how businesses are literally cheating the system.

Every business thinking about an imitation Green certification need only think forward a little to the day when that logo now showing on your website or store window gets some negative press. Eventually, it will come out that numerous businesses use the same purchased logo, but now are busted by an investigative reporter. We all know this will eventually happen because there are no checks and audits. Everything is secretly and privately accomplished by “online assessments” that are also falsely called audits.  Audits cannot be conducted by the one being audited.  That is a scam!

The choices are becoming more clear because the issues of ethics and transparency allow only one kind of decision. An audit cannot be a self-serving, clandestine, or deceptive decision. All the good done by a Green business certification will cause worse damage when the facts eventually come out. Many shallow Green business certifications will eventually become badges of shame because they were purchase to deceive the public, and the public will not be fooled for long.