I’ve heard this conversation a number of times at the small-to-medium sized enterprises (SME) I work with:

Green Vendor: “So Mr. CEO, how many of my carbon neutral, biodegradable, BPA-free whoozamacallits would you like to purchase?”

CEO: “This seems like a great product and of course my company wants to protect the environment. So I will give this to my purchasing manager, and she’ll contact you in a few days.”

Of course what the CEO says is not what he thinks. All he hears is “Blah, blah and blah. More $. Blah blah and blah. Politically correct. Blah blah and blah. No budget and no time. Blah blah.”

The big companies have the resources to be more strategic in their decisions to go green. Not so for the SMEs. The vendors that I have seen succeed are the ones that have the ability to translate the benefits of the products they offer into the language that the businessperson wants to hear.

What we have here is a failure to communicate.

The sellers are not speaking in the terms that the mainstream executives want to hear. They talk enviro-talk. The executives are still evaluating purchasing decisions based on the only values they have – financial – and regardless of whether that is right or wrong, it is what it is.

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For small businesses, like mine, and nonprofits, it might be tough to get in on the action unless you’re prepared to work as a government contractor, which requires jumping through many hoops. But, if you are willing/able to do so, check out Grants.gov, a searchable listing of what’s available.

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Do you just accept this story as further proof that “it isn’t easy being green”? Do you see no alternative for this poor man but to just go out there and work this backbreaking labor for green energy? Do I hear you snort derisively?

Or… are you able to think creatively? Come on; give me your ideas for solving this. How hard would it be to plan for this kind of weather condition? Couldn’t cold weather solar providers offer a solution to this problem? I can see two very easy possible fixes right away. What solutions can you think of?

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Dear Senator Lugar (I wrote each member individually, but Senator Lugar went first),

I’m a stay-at-home mom of two little girls, and in my free time I make hand-crafted toys  out of recycled and/or natural materials. I sell my work at craft fairs and online—my girls are able to be with me, playing happily, and the small amount of money I earn is one of the things that enables me to stay home with them.

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Entrepreneurial trends are difficult to track and ecopreneurial enterprises even more so. The US Small Business Administration estimates that there are about 4.5 million small businesses with 9 or fewer employees. About three-quarters of all business firms have no employee payroll at all because they’re set up as self-employed persons operating unincorporated businesses. According to the Association for Enterprise Opportunity (microenterpriseworks.org), there are more than 23 million microenterprises (a business with five or fewer employees) in the US, representing 18 percent of all private employment and 87 percent of all businesses. You might be among the 15 million full-time or part-time small office/home office entrepreneurs, or SOHOs, like my wife and I with our diversified small enterprise.

Identified by Dan Pink in Free Agent Nation, there are about 33 million free agents in America. These “job-hopping, tech-savvy, fulfillment seeking, self-reliant, independent” workers represent about 16.5 million soloists, 3.5 million temporary workers (temps) and 13 million microbusinesses that include construction contractors, real estate agents, nannies, direct sales ventures (e.g., Shaklee, shaklee.com), services subcontractors and accountants. Operating as a microbusiness, or what Pink refers to as a “nanocorp” with three employees or less, is both a personal preference and competitive advantage, allowing the owners to downsize to provide incredible adaptability, innovation and creativity. Our sub-chapter S Corporation is a nanocorp committed to ecological restoration and social change while turning a modest profit.

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Following are a few more strategies we’ve employed, like many other ecopreneurs.

Strategy # 5: Enough Is Enough

A key facet for many small business ecopreneurs is the recognition of living within our ecological and financial means. By exiting the rat race and crafting our own business at a level we can manage, we can commit ourselves to our Earth Mission. A key step, however, is to let go of the idea that we must own a new car or new stereo, go on lavish vacations or in myriad ways keep up with the fictional Joneses. Many Europeans have known this for years.

Strategy # 6: Be Creative and Innovative

“Of three precious resources in life — time, money and creativity — the only unlimited one is your creativity,” writes Ernie Zelinski in The Joy of Not Working. “Make creativity your number one resource, and time and money won’t be as scarce.” Ecopreneurs sometimes thrive in a service economy where there are not products or in a durable economy where there is no waste. After all, who really wants to “own” carpet. I, for one, will be the first in line for an affordable service contract for a computer (famous for their obsolescence in less than three years).

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Strategy # 2: KISS Principle: Keep It Small Stupid

While the mantra today might be get big or get out, be a millionaire or — for the more socially responsible — “getting to scale” without losing the values the business was founded upon, we’ve discovered the more human-scaled our operations and practices, the more we can accomplish in terms of reaching our Earth Mission.

Size matters not. It’s what and how we operate. Do the best we can in whatever our priorities and live without regrets. It’s a qualitative measure of success, not a quantitative one. Not bigger, but better.

There’s a small mart revolution going on, proclaims Michael Shuman in The Small Mart Revolution. It echoes the “power of one” worldview; we are the world. We don’t underestimate what a nation of ecopreneurial proprietors might collectively accomplish. Perhaps that’s how we view scale: a nation of ecopreneurs. However, we also respect the decision of those ecopreneurs whose fire in their belly lead them to become household names or lead to the sustainable transformation of their communities.

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Many small businesses are born in the most humble of beginnings: a small corner of a bedroom, the kitchen table of an apartment, maybe even a closet. Most expand to off-site offices as they grow, leaving behind the convenience of working from home for the increased visibility and professionalism of a “real office.” But for many types of businesses, having an off-site office is not at all necessary. Especially if much of the work revolves around a computer.

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Mr. Kennard has a long list of credits, starting as a community organizer for the Conservation Foundation in the late 1960’s, helping to “lay groundwork for the environmental movement and the subsequent explosion of grassroots action on Earth Day.”. He was awarded the Leadership Medal of the United Nations Environment Program for “distinguished contribution to the cause of the environment.”

He served as National Vice Chair of Sun Day in 1978, National Chair of Earth Day in 1980 and as Special Consultant to the EPA Administrator for Earth Day 1990.

He also authored the book of essays on social and political change, “Nothing Can Be Done, Everything Is Possible.” The Christian Science Monitor called the book “a primer for the modern-day activist.”