Business Tips, Resources & Ideas

Companies that are wondering about how to take their sustainability efforts to the next level may benefit from knowing that most leading sustainability companies — particularly the larger ones — progressed in several stages, and over a multi-year period. Based on our work and research with dozens of companies, I …

The Institute for Sustainable Development and BrownFlynn, a Cleveland-based sustainability consulting firm, joined forces this summer to better understand the intersection between stakeholder engagement and sustainability by surveying organizations on the topic. While research has been done on the topics separately, there has been very little exploration of their interaction. More than 175 organizations – including businesses, …

These days leaders of small businesses have their hands full just trying to survive. So why would they add a sustainability strategy to their already overloaded priorities? Because sustainability strategies are all about business survival. Like it or not, sustainability offers both threats and opportunities for small businesses. And the …

There are a variety of reasons for businesses to pursue sustainable practices, from wanting to improve the health of the surrounding community to reducing costs. Another competitive advantage for sustainable businesses is in attraction and retention of younger workers. From Fast Company: “According to Greenbiz, the OXYGENZ report surveyed 3,011 …

Spring is a great time to make your business more bicycle-friendly. In addition to fabulous bicycling events and fundraisers that take place during the warm months, policies that support biking to work can be an excellent long-term management decision. Bicycle-friendly businesses garner good PR — you demonstrate to your clients …

As recently published on GreenBiz.com by Claudia Girrbach: “Packaging — especially wasteful packaging — has become a bright spot on the radar for companies and individuals that are working on reducing their environmental impacts. But even the most proactive companies are finding that the problem can’t simply be addressed in-house. …

From the Harvard Business Review: “Contrary to the popular misconception that going green is expensive, in a very large range of cases, environmental initiatives don’t raise costs, they lower them – and fast… But even for the most head-slappingly obvious changes with super-fast paybacks, companies still need to find the capital …

Suzanne Henricksen created a community outreach program for her marketing department at The Clorox Co., which led to quarterly volunteer events. Shoshannah Lenski headed a team that developed a greenhouse gas reduction strategy for her firm, the Boston Consulting Group. Over at Best Buy, Hamlin Metzger helped jumpstart the company’s …

How to Build a Green Team: The First Step to Sustainability In the first three parts of this series on how to grow a green corporation, we discussed why it is important to build sustainability into your business plan, how you might assess the positive and negative impacts of sustainability …