Green Options

It’s time to join tens of millions of Americans who are rediscovering commerce in a local ECOnomy where customers are not treated like “consumers,” but rather as friends, fellow citizens, or neighbors.

While visiting a good friend in Baltimore, Maryland, my family and I wandered the narrow streets of Fell’s Point, the eclectic and artistic enclave and community that offers a more laid back vibe than the festive and equally bustling Baltimore Inner Harbor, peppered with national franchised restaurants and retail chain stores. As travelers, we recognized how the “buy local” movement echoes the growing ecotravel movement, allowing us to experience an authentic sense of place, supporting the restoration and redevelopment of neighborhoods and preserve one-of-a-kind businesses that create one-of-a-kind communities.

We ended up spending most of our day in Fell’s Point where the somewhat Bohemian community seemed to soak up its reputation not just for its retail district and overall attractiveness to hang out or go jogging, biking, or strolling. It’s one of the places where buying local thrives as Buy Local Baltimore, a project of the Chesapeake Sustainable Business Association. Buy Local Baltimore is an educational and marketing campaign designed to encourage area residents to patronize local independent businesses in an effort to improve the quality of life in Baltimore neighborhoods and enhance the economic vitality of the greater Baltimore region. Baltimore’s take on building a more vibrant local economy with small business entrepreneurship reflects the larger movement afoot nationally which often emerges from such organizations as the Business Alliance for Local Living Economies (BALLE).

We ducked into artisanal shops, learned about the history of the area at the Fell’s Point Maritime Museum and sipped a cafe mocha at the Daily Grind, featuring coffee roasted right in town and served up with a smile and a discount for bringing in my own mug. For dinner we savored locally harvested steamed mussels at Bertha’s — even my young son enjoyed one.

We picked up a card from the Buy Local Baltimore which nicely summarizes some of the many reasons why we could do a little more commerce in our communities (instead of shopping at big box stores where most of the money, especially those profits, leaves our community):

1. Keeping money in the neighborhood.

On average, for every $100 spent at a locally owned business, $45 stays in the community according to Buy Local Baltimore. For a chain store, less than $14 stays in the community.

As explored in my previous posts related to the triple bottom line for green enterprises, these business ecopreneurs seek to consider all stakeholders of their enterprise (not just the shareholders or owners’ financial interests), how the business transforms or is transformed by the environment, and finally, profits, the heralded benchmark for allowing one to define their business as a business, not a hobby.

Millions of American workers — steady-eddy 9-to-5-ers (or sunrise to sunset go-getters) — are observing how the fine print of their so-called pensions could wipe out their sense retirement security while healthcare costs continue to get larger and their portion of the bills explode. Many are kissing off corporate America before their company goes bust or gets gobbled up by Uncle Sam. They’re managing the crisis rather than the financial crisis managing them by launching the dream green business they’ve always wanted with a triple bottom line of people, planet and (some) profits.

Ecopreneurs, harness our profits to create the changes they desire in their communities, shifting the economy away from the present one based on cheap oil, wasted resources, the exploitation of people, and, as of late, drinking form the bottomless cup of debt (mostly “bad” debt). We operate our enterprise in a way that restores or heals the planet — in the restoration ECOnomy — and fosters more equitable and fair relationships among anything touched by our business. By running our own enterprise, many have discovered just how much we can regain control over our life (even if we can’t seem to influence our representatives in Washington DC much).

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.

It warms my heart when I come across a company that touches all aspects of the triple bottom line - financial, social and environmental. It really gets my blood pumping when that company produces yummy yarns.

Created by Nadine Storyk Curtis, Be Sweet is one such company that has all those lines covered. While living in South Africa, Curtis became enamored with the local craftspeople and wanted to share in their creativity and resourcefulness.

Working with a rural South African community, Be Sweet offers over 15 different yarns that are hand spun and dyed by women who work within a job creation program. All of Be Sweet’s yarns are made from natural fibers and most are created from using leftover yarn tid-bits and environmentally friendly fibers like bamboo.

Starting a business takes a lot of time, effort, and planning. An entrepreneur has to wear many hats, juggle several tasks at a time, and be incredibly organized. So why would any business owner want to add protecting the environment and saving the planet to their already endless to-do lists? It’s all about the dream.

Which brings me to my dream. It combines two of my favorite things, graphic design and the environment. My goal is to start my own graphic and web design studio that focuses on projects that have a positive impact on people and the environment. This is why I wanted to become a designer in the first place. Good design has the power to communicate in ways that nothing else can. It can educate, open minds, inspire thought, and incite change. An image is truly worth a thousand words, and I want the graphics that I create to have real meaning and a positive message. It would be nice to make a living doing it, too.

As I continue to write and think about the issue
of Fair Trade, it becomes more and more apparent to me that our economic system is a root cause for a wide array of our world’s woes. Instances of poverty, disease, wars (and the dehumanization that accompanies all three), and our quickly degrading environment occuring all over the world (but especially in the poorer Southern hemisphere) can all be traced back to an economic

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