Is Greening Your Business A Distraction?
I just met with Auden Schendler, Director of Sustainability for Aspen Ski Company. I had some questions for him about the book I’m writing on greening small businesses and he was kind enough to spend a good deal of time with me discussing small businesses and climate change.
Schendler, a charismatic, hunky guy, politely suggested that talking about greening business operations was a distraction from the real issue. Helping small businesses implement recycling programs and change their CFLs let businesses off the hook for doing the tough stuff: effecting public policy change. My book would be insignificant. Ouch!
After further discussion, Schendler begrudgingly conceded that greening your business was necessary and also essential for lending yourself credibility. His bigger point, however, was that greening should be done concurrently with higher order activities. He wants to make sure that before we discuss how to green your business, we discuss how to effect public policy or how to green all your customer’s activities. In other words, since we can’t all afford to install solar panels, we all need to make climate change policy our business. In fact, it seems like Schendler believes that your time may be as valuable to environmental progress as your CFLs.
