Many organizations have realized that green business practices can create a competitive business advantage. These new approaches for improving organizational performance drive increased employee engagement and provide great opportunities to make a real difference in addressing major environmental concerns.

Some companies have integrated their green initiatives into every aspect of their businesses. Through these efforts they have been able to produce new lines of innovative products and services as well as boost their triple bottom-lines. But sometimes, it’s not easy to identify ways to solve a problem of such magnitude as sustainability.

Complex changes like this require tremendous collaboration and coordination, so you need to gather the input and ideas from all of your key stakeholders — from employees and customers to vendors and business partners. Educate them about your vision for a sustainable future and involve them in the process so they feel like they are contributing to the end goal. They will be much more engaged in the process and are more likely to participate in any new initiatives if they participate right from the start.

Whether your organization is looking to implement green initiatives through an organization-wide transformation or more of a grassroots movement, Plus Delta Consulting has developed the following 11 idea starters to get you “going green.”

1 )		What can I do individually? How can each person in our organization change his or her behavior or ways of working to contribute to the company’s sustainable business practices?
2 )		What can our department do together? What opportunities do we have within our department’s business operations or functional work processes to support the company’s vision of going green? For example, one of our clients recently realized how many paper cups they were using and decided to produce glass cups with their logo on them and distribute them to everyone to reduce the wasted paper.
3 )		What inter-departmental opportunities exist? Can we create better efficiencies or new processes between departments to create a more sustainable organization?
4 )		What divisional or company-wide opportunities exist? Where can we create better efficiencies across the company that benefit both us and our environment?
5 )		How can we reduce our energy consumption? Are there low-risk, high-value opportunities to use less electricity and fuel or possibly leverage more renewable energy sources? For example, maybe we can encourage everyone to turn out the lights when they leave a conference room or other area that isn’t being used.
6 )		How can we reduce materials or waste? What low-risk, high-value opportunities exist in how we produce our products or services?
7 )		How can we create a more efficient infrastructure? Are there opportunities to reduce, reuse, or recycle materials within our own systems?
8 )		How can we improve the design of our products or services? How can we make our products or services even better and more environmentally-friendly at the same time?
9 )		What new products or services can we offer? How can our company take “green” products or services to our existing markets and customers? Or how can we penetrate new market segments with new products or services? Many of these new innovations will probably be funded by the government, and some of them might even be licensed to other companies to create additional revenue streams.
10)		How can we reduce our carbon footprint? What key functions or areas of the company can we target first to reduce our carbon footprint? Maybe we can implement flex-time or other work-from-home programs to reduce employee commuting.
11)		How can we partner with our preferred vendors and other business partners on green initiatives? What green initiatives are they implementing? How can we collaborate and support each other in these efforts? For example, some companies now require their preferred vendors to use more recyclable materials when packaging their products and shipping them otherwise they will not buy from them anymore.

Can Plus Delta Consulting help you “go green”? Our consultants are passionate about implementing sustainable business practices. So if there’s anything we can do to help your company integrate green initiatives into how you do business, give us a call at +1 (310) 589-4600 or send an email to info@plusdelta.net.