Many organizations have realized that green business practices provide a competitive business advantage. It’s an opportunity to make a real difference in a way that benefits not only bottom line results, but also fosters stronger employee engagement, improves community relations, and creates a sense of corporate responsibility.

Some companies have integrated their green initiatives into every aspect of their business, and have even resulted in the addition of innovative products and services to boost bottom line results. In most cases, though, it’s not easy to come up with potentially significant contributions that result in a measurable impact to cost or profitability.

Plus Delta Consulting recommends collaborating with all of your stakeholders — employees, customers, vendors, and business partners — to gather input, ideas, and perspectives. Educate your stakeholders about sustainability and the company’s vision, and then involve them so everyone feels like they are contributing to the goal. They will be much more engaged in the process and will be much more likely to participate in any new initiatives.

Whether your organization is looking to implement green initiatives as part of a large-scale transformation, or just at a grassroots level, Plus Delta suggests the following idea starters to…… get you “going green.”

1. What can I do individually? How can I change my  behavior or ways of working to contribute to the organization’s sustainable business practices?
2. What can our department do? What opportunities do we have within our department’s operations or processes to support the company’s vision of going green?
3. What opportunities exist between departments? Can we create efficiencies or new processes in how we work with other departments?
4. What divisional or company-wide opportunities exist for efficiency? Where can we create efficiencies that benefit both the company and the environment?
5. How can we reduce our energy consumption? Are there low-risk opportunities to use less electricity, fuel, renewable energy sources, etc.?
6. How can we reduce materials or waste? What are the low-risk, high-value opportunities 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 within our 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 could we offer? How can our company provide “green” products or services to new markets and customers?
10. What new products or services could we create that might also be patented or licensed to other companies? What are the opportunities for government funding for these in our market or industry?
11. How could we reduce our carbon footprint? What key functions or areas of the company could we analyze and target first?
12. How could we partner with our vendors and business partners on collaborative green initiatives? What green initiatives are they implementing? How can we collaborate and support each other?

Can Plus Delta Consulting help your organization “go green”? Our consultants are passionate about helping our clients implement sustainable business practices, so please do let us know. If you have implemented green practices, please share your “green” organizational experiences with us!

We’ve all heard of the “Hawthorne Effect”, right? Studies done between 1924-1932 at the Hawthorne Works (a Western Electric facility located outside of Chicago) attempted to study the effects of lowering or raising the levels of light in the building on employee productivity. As students of OD, we learned that workers responded with higher productivity levels NOT because of higher or lower levels of light, but primarily because they were being shown some interest by management. In fact, other changes such as maintaining clean work stations, clearing floors of obstacles, and even relocating workstations resulted in increased productivity for short periods of time.

A quick Google search on the impact of environment on productivity brought up several studies on the impact of such things as temperature, visual comfort and view, and office layouts. Once such article cited two cases of note:

A Rocky Mountains Institute report relating “green” or sustainable buildings to human productivity reviewed eight case studies, two of them with remarkable results. The first concerned a new Wal-Mart, in Lawrence, Kan., designed to harvest optimal daylight through skylights installed on half of the roof. According to Wal-Mart, the sales per square foot located within the departments with access to natural light are significantly higher compared with sales in departments located under the conventional roof. Sales were also higher than in identical departments in other stores without access to skylights. In fact, Wal-Mart employees prefer to work in the departments with daylight.

In the new Lockheed Building 157 in Sunnyvale, Calif., several daylight strategies were used to enhance visual comfort–and they reduced Lockheed’s artificial lighting cost by 75%. With daylight generating less heat than artificial lighting, space cooling loads have also been reduced. Lockheed has not directly published its data related to productivity gain, but the project architect reported that Lockheed officials have indicated an increase in productivity by 15% on the first major project undertaken in the new facility compared with previous experience in their old facility.

These are indeed encouraging.

I recently visited a former client – a major player in the life sciences and biomedical laboratory instrument arena – and they had just completed a move into a completely redesigned, green facility (LEED Certified). My client beamed with excitement and pride as she gave Jeremy and me a tour of the facility. It’s too soon to tell if there are any productivity gains out of these changes.

So here’s my question for discussion? What are employers doing to make work places more productive from the standpoint of interior design, landscaping, natural lighting, open work spaces, etc.? Are you considering switching to LED lighting? Do you have a business case for these efforts or measurable improvements in productivity? What are your thoughts?