GREEN BUSINESS VIEWS

Posts Tagged ‘green certified’

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.

On more than a few occasions, my office gets questions about whether the Green of Sustainability business issue is serious or a fad.  It is not a fad!  Businesses in the near future will face constant pressure to Go Green.  In several instances, our office received a panic call from a business competing for a contract that had a “Green Certification” requirement in it.  There was no need to legislate the action, the company or agency simple put the requirement into the new RFP or contract requirements.  Suddenly, the urgency of Going Green got very real, and everyone sought a Green certification that put them into the contract opportunity.

Let me point out that you should avoid at all costs the scam online certifications.  You know the ones that charge you a fee to sign up; but never, ever see your business.  While deceitfully claiming that their online self-assessments are actually “audits,” they actually suggest that businesses be complicit in their Green fraud that is fully intended to deceive the public served by their greenwashed business hoax.  There are always knockoffs of the real thing, but without an actual audit, no Green certification is credible.

Well, getting back to the original thought, I just saw an article on the Dow Jones Sustainability Index (DJSI) that is described as: “The annual review of the DJSI family is based on a thorough analysis of corporate economic, environmental and social performance, assessing issues such as corporate governance, risk management, branding, climate change mitigation, supply chain standards and labor practices.”  Goldman Sachs has invested strongly in the Green energy sector, including the carbon credit exchanges.  These, and many other high-level companies certainly send a resounding message about the reality of Green business compliance in the future.

The newest and most impressive Green jobs is “Certified Sustainability Officer,” and it appears that this is the next necessary part to the Green business program.  The sustainability officer is the in-house Green officer that maps out the company’s Green program by developing a “Sustainability Plan” for the company.  Businesses finally understand that Going Green is not a one-time effort by a transition process that will take 3-5 years to complete.  The sustainability officer provides the constant support and input to make the sustainable practices ingrained into the daily fabric of the business.

So, all businesses are going to see increased pressure to Go Green through initiatives like Green Supply Chain, EPA’s Environmentally Preferred Purchasing, Triple Bottom Line, and Corporate Social Responsibility.  These various efforts are a call to integrity and follow through as a Green business.  We have spent a decade piecemealing our way to a Green operation, and it simply doesn’t work.  If your company plans to compete in the Green marketplace of tomorrow, it must become an authentically Green business.

There is actually only one sure method to eliminate greenwashing, and that is a certification process that comes from an independent third-party.  The difficulty to field hundreds of Certified Green Auditors is a task that only a few dedicated companies have accomplished.

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.

There are times when I feel  that my efforts for environmentalism are out of step with those who have been the spokesperson for their area of environmental practices.   For some, we are going too fast and asking too much, and for others we are going too slow and asking too little.   Of course, those with a special penchant feel that I am not paying enough attention to their issues.   Essentially, it feels a little like a game called “King of the Mountain” that we all played as children.

Standing atop your mountain, you invite all comers.  “Try me out and see if you can do better,” is the taunting challenge.   Then comes the challengers, large and small.  It is part skill and part strength to hold your ground as king of the mountain.  With each victory, confidence and pride is raised, but then comes the eventual failed defense.   In this metaphor, the mountain was really not all that important in the real scheme of things.  It was simply my mountain for a short period of time.

As I watch the evolution of the environmental cause, things are more serious that in grade school; and the causes are not a game.  Nonetheless, the challenge to be the one whose opinion is heard and respected is the adult version of this adult generation.

In the cacophony of voices vying for public attention, I would try to defend a pragmatic form of environmentalism.  There are those who are more scholarly, and there are those more passion-driven.  I feel strongly that the environmental debate does us little good, unless it has the tactic feel of something that we can lay our hands on and put to work.

In the building process, there are the engineers and architects who draw the design, do the math, and unify the demand of many processes into a functional diagram.  These are the well-trained theoreticians which provide the planning and forethought for a  well-designed building.

Then there are the people with tools who turn the ideas into reality.  Which one is more important?  Both would argue that their part of the process is critical and most valuable.   But, we need not stop there.  What about the politicians and agencies who pass laws and enforce regulations to safeguard the public safety?   Perhaps, it is the realtor who put real people in an empty building.  In the end, the residents who live or work in the building must turn a building into something profitable or useful.  Which is most important?

The answer is that they all play their part and are invaluable at some point of the process.

I am a pragmatic person with enough intellect to appreciate the academic side of the process as well of the application side.   What matters to me is that we engage the challenge before us bringing all the expertise, skills, and talent that we can spare.

There is an obvious pending catastrophe looming on the horizon.  No matter what you believe about global warming or climate change, there are 7 billion people on the earth with 9 billion predicted by 2025.  In the 1950’s there were only about 4 billion people in the world.

For the first time, we are measuring the approximate reach of our resources, and it seems all too obvious that the world will eventually reach critical mass when needed resources are exhausted unless we alter the future by what we do today.

No, I am not a tree-hugger, a scientist, an engineer, a meteorologist, or a politician.  I see myself as a pragmatic environmentalist that honestly hopes that I can win over a lot of other people to my non-radicalized solution for our ailing world.   I hope for innovation and invention to buy us time and literally rescue our future.   There are grand scope challenges that require the skills of a scientist or engineer to evaluate and resolve.  I really hope that politicians know enough to avoid laws that do more harm than good as we fight our way out of this mess.  But, I believe that the biggest challenge of them all is enlisting the service of countless people in whatever level of life they function.

I honestly believe that the environmental problem is a universal problem that requires universal participation.  That participation should not be only for the well-endowed, but offering simple solutions that can be applied everywhere.  While scientist do things few of us can accomplish and corporations commit resources that few of us can afford; the magnitude of the environmental threat is greater than even these grand efforts.

The environmental message is the value of one good deed magnified 7 billion times over, making a massive change in our world.  No one should devalue the environmental efforts being made on a grand scale because they are impressive and represent great progress.   If the governments and agencies flood billions of dollars into the torn country of Haiti, does this annul the $10 gift of a blue collar worker?  When there are a million blue collar workers making a $10 gift, the combined value is $10 million.

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.

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.