Strategies for the Green Economy

By Joel Makower

 

 

Buildingctgreen.com is pleased to feature an exclusive excerpt from the introduction of Joel Makower's new book, Strategies for the Green Economy. Makower, a nationally recognized green business expert, gives our visitors his insights regarding the growing green economy.

 

The greening of mainstream business is not a new phenomenon. It has been growing for many years, despite its absence from the mainstream media. Since the 1980s, and even earlier in some cases, companies have found that they can reduce costs, risks, and liabilities by cleaning up their acts well beyond what is required by law. They did these things not necessarily because they hoped to “save the earth” but because these activities— cutting waste and pollution and improving efficiencies—simply were good business practices. Many companies have been reluctant to boast about their environmental initiatives and achievements, finding that doing so can bring unwanted scrutiny, perhaps exposing company environmental challenges about which the public wasn’t previously aware. Contrary to conventional wisdom, environmental responsibility is an arena in which companies have been walking more than talking—that is, doing more than they’ve been saying.

 

Those days are drawing to a close. With increased societal demands for accountability and transparency, and the desire for consumers and businesses to buy from “good” companies, business leaders are finding that being humble is no longer an asset. Companies, including both those selling goods and services to consumers as well as to other companies, are being asked to be more forthcoming about their environmental and social impacts—both the things they’re doing right and the things they aren’t. This means that companies need to have good stories to tell, stories with substance and significance.

 

This is no mean feat. At the same time that customers are demanding greener products and services, many are skeptical about company claims and pronouncements on these issues. That skepticism is aided and abetted by the media and environmental activists, many of which are quick to criticize companies’ imperfections and slow to applaud their progress. As some companies have found, no green deed goes unpunished.

 

These skeptics’ concerns are not unfounded. As you’ll see in the pages of this book, the industrial sector’s contribution to environmental problems is often greater than most people recognize. One example: The amount of solid waste produced in the manufacture of goods, including the extraction and production of raw materials, overshadows by 65 times the municipal solid waste that most people refer to when expressing concern about “the landfill crisis.” That waste is largely hidden, not typically captured in publicly reported statistics, although this may change.

 

Given all this history and skepticism, companies that seek to be green leaders and that derive business value from the new green economy confront a number of questions and challenges:

 

• What does it take to be seen as an environmental leader and to garner the business benefits therein?

 

• How good must your company be to be seen as “good”?

 

• What are the standards, implicit or explicit, that you must meet?

 

• How do you talk about what you are doing right—and what you’re not?

 

• How do you circumvent the distrust and skepticism?

 

• How can you be heard amid all the “green noise” in the media and online?

 

In short: How do you succeed in a world gone green?

 

October, 2008