Green Options

A startling new WWF study has revealed that people living in Hong Kong currently use twice as many resources as residents in China, more than double the sustainable level.

To feed the vibrant city’s massive demand for natural resources, and absorb the CO2 emitted, residents need an area of land and sea larger than 250 Hong Kong’s, an incredible seven-fold increase since 1965.

According to Mathis Wackernagel, Executive Director of the Global Footprint Network, “Although small geographically, Hong Kong not only has significant resource demands, but it also has an over-proportional influence on the world.

More than fifteen thousand people have taken part in a mass protest in southern India, against the extension of a new reserve to protect tigers facing a very real threat of extinction.

The last count revealed that the number of Indian tigers has plummeted from around 40,000 at the beginning of last century to an all time low of just 1,411, largely due to dwindling habitats and the activities of poachers. Despite these depressing statistics, residents of India’s Chennai region are firmly against any further safeguards, fearing that they will lose their homes if an extension to the Mudumalai Wildlife sanctuary is given the green light.

Coming up with a list of 10 eccentric habits of what she calls “love snobs who try to evoke green passions but miss” shouldn’t have been easy for anyone. But Jeanette, my green-conscious friend, did it with very interesting observations.

Eco-consciousness in many intimate relationships of the boy-and-girl type can be snobbish, Jeanette says, because the lovers who probably kissed on a garden sidewalk for the first time unknowingly tend to outdo each other while emphasizing their green credentials. This is the thrust of her musings:

My first two posts about the triple bottom line for green businesses addressed the people who make up an enterprise as well as the people who supply it, use the goods or services created, or invest in the enterprise.

First coined by John Elkington and articulated in his book, Cannibals with Forks: The Triple Bottom Line of the 21st Century, the triple bottom line doesn’t drop the idea that businesses should earn a profit. It adds that businesses should do so in ways that take into account environmental and social performance in addition to financial performance. It requires a strong and efficient organization, perhaps even more so. Not only do you need to make a profit, you need funds and resources to reach beyond where mainstream business stops. A triple bottom line means expanding the spectrum of values and criteria for measuring business success to include: the planet, people and profits.

A Planet Bottom Line

Is what is being produced or services provided better for ALL life? A Planet bottom line continually examines inputs and outputs, addressing the materials we use and how we use them as well as minimizing – if not eliminating — waste. Ecopreneurs recognize and incorporate ecological limits into their business models. Many shun the use of toxic chemicals, hazardous materials or processes, or exploitative approaches to nature. A growing number of people are adopting an approach to product development or design that involves biomimicry.

Last week I shared the triple bottom line adapted from our ECOpreneuring book. The triple bottom line encompasses people, planet and (some) profits. Since people run a business, I started by examining how the DNA of a Green Business Starts with People, touching on customers and employees (apparently not highly valued at the now defunct Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns).

The other two People bottom lines are vendors/suppliers and investors (if your business has any), addressed below:

(3) Vendors and Suppliers

How a sustainable business chooses and interacts with vendors and suppliers, so-called business-to-business transactions, that provide the supplies and services the business needs to run is one way ecopreneurs are helping grow and magnify our impacts. We seek out like-minded vendors with whom to do business. Co-op America’s Green Pages (greenpages.com) is often our first stop to look for products our business might need, since it lists thousands of socially and environmentally responsible businesses.

A growing number of small businesses are perhaps inspired by the Amish and their collaborative sense of community and shared economic prosperity. Rather than working alone, many Amish provide goods or services to each other, working together on projects that on the surface may benefit only one farmer, but on the whole end up benefiting the entire community. As author Bill McKibben writes about in Deep Economy, there’s greater comfort and security from community membership than individual ownership. This idea is reflected in the business-to-business commerce mushrooming on the Internet and in small businesses, especially the nanocorps, or new forms of interlinked commercial websites, like Sohodojo.com.

People, planet and profits (at least some). That’s what the triple bottom line means for green businesses and a truly sustainable society.

The triple bottom line is not greenwash, a PR campaign or the “principles” part of a Sustainability Report. It’s the DNA of how a green business operates. It’s measured by such things as trees planted, living wages paid and problems solved (not created).

This is the first of a series of blogs that explore various facets of the triple bottom line commitment to operating sustainably and responsibly, starting with people.

People play a fundamental role in the ecopreneur’s business philosophy, realizing four different groups of people have their own sets of needs and priorities: customers, employees, vendors/suppliers, and investors. Many ecopreneurs we’ve interviewed for ECOpreneuring talk about stakeholders, not stockholders. They generate profits by caring for their stakeholders, not trying to crush competing businesses. They’re more concerned with nurturing their community, customers and employees and investors, if they have them. The following are the first two of the four groups of stakeholders (the other two addressed next week).

(1) Customers

Cultivating conserving customers drives ecopreneurial business success. Ecopreneurs view their customers much more as kindred spirits, sharing Earth-based values and priorities. Customer service, product quality and guaranteed services or products are crucial to their business success. Valuing customer communication translates to showcasing honesty, integrity and transparency. A respectful challenge banters between customers and sustainable businesses, much deeper and more personal than in typical customer interactions. Ecopreneurs expect to be scrutinized by their customers, and
likewise, our customers expect candid, honest replies. Customers challenge ecopreneurs with questions like: Do you carry envelopes made with post-consumer waste? Can I get this in hemp? How do you offset your greenhouse gas emissions? Where are your ingredients sourced from? These questions keep our business constantly moving forward toward higher goals and expectations. On the flip side, at our Bed & Breakfast, Inn Serendipity, we must be honest that our guest rooms don’t feature air conditioning or TVs.

A Kenyan schoolgirl has revealed how she hid in a forest habited by elephants as she made an escape from a marriage suitor two and a half times her age.

She gathered all her inner strength and courage to cross a crocodile infested river near her home deep in the arid Masai warrior tribe country with her father and her wannabe husband in hot pursuit.

Betty Lason, now 17 and still in primary school, said recently that she vividly remembers the incident six years ago because she executed her plan one evening after returning to her new husband’s home from day-long sheep and goat herding in the bush under the scorching sun.

It is official, and the pronouncement was made by none other than the head of state himself: albinos in Tanzania are an endangered species and must be protected!

President Jakaya Mrisho Kikwete recently ordered a massive police crackdown on witchdoctors who lure and kill albino people for body parts to be used in ritualistic healing sessions with their clients as a talisman for good luck.

Woe unto you if you are an albino in this poor east Africa nation of 39 million people. The government says 19 have been murdered in 2008, but activists claim the figure could be as high as 60, in a country where more than 160,000 are said to suffer the genetic condition in which the person lacks pigmentation in the eyes, skin and hair.