Jennifer Kaplan, partner in Greenhance LLC and author of the valuable and very practical book Greening Your Small Business: How to Improve Your Bottom Line, Grow Your Brand, Satisfy Your Customers - and Save the Planet, took the time to answer a few questions about her book. She also described some of the emerging trends in environmental action taking place within many small business. She shared as well, some money saving and profitable tips for starting your own company on the road to becoming a green business.
Thanks to Jennifer Kaplan for her time, and for providing these wonderful answers about how to make your small business a more green one.
What was the background to writing your book Greening Your Small Business: How to Improve Your Bottom Line, Grow Your Brand, Satisfy Your Customers - and Save the Planet?
Jennifer Kaplan: I was doing market research for a client who wanted to green her small retail store. In the process I found that there was a lot of information about going green for homeowners and a lot of information for large corporations, but very little for small businesses. There was actually a lot of information, but it was all over the place. I thought: Someone should write a book aggregating all this information. So, I set out to compile an extensive list of resources. But, I realized along the way that there is so much more to greening a small business then simply changing business practices.
For example, there’s a whole advocacy piece. The time a business invests in impacting policies and standards can be as valuable to environmental progress as installing new light bulbs. And then of course there’s the marketing piece. How effectively a small business communicates its environmental commitment, objectives, and successes to customers, employees, and other stakeholders will in large part determine how much value they get out of a green program.
What does it really mean for a business to decide to go green?
Jennifer Kaplan: When people talk about going green, they are typically talking about efforts to reduce or mitigate carbon-producing activities that cause global warming. The primary culprits are the by-products of burning fossil fuels to provide the energy we use in the course of our daily lives. Fossil fuels are used to produce electricity in our homes and businesses, to provide our travel and transportation, and to create the food, clothes, and other products we buy and consume every day. However, ask one hundred people what it means to go green and you will get one hundred different answers.
While it may be hard to pinpoint exactly what going green means, we know that going green is not just an energy issue. Going green involves adopting a set of guiding principles related to sustainability and implementing practices that support those principles throughout your business. In other words, environmental sustainability becomes the lens through which you view every business decision you make—including what you purchase, the resources you use, and the products and services you provide. At its heart, going green is about changing the way you think about the impact your business can have on the environment.
How can a small business person develop a plan to become a more green business?
Jennifer Kaplan: This is a great question because effective green programs don’t just happen. They require planning and the steps are virtually identical regardless of the ultimate scope of the program. Once you’ve set a program in motion and implemented a handful of green practices, you may find that you’re pleased with the results. Maybe after installing high efficiency light bulbs, your energy costs drop. Or your expanded commitment to recycling generates strong employee support. Or your customers respond positively to new menus printed on recycled paper. Success breeds success. Make a plan to choose five or ten more items to green next year—and the year after.
Here are some first steps for starting a small green program:
1. Create a green team.
2. Hold a launch meeting. Set next steps and give staff members specific assignments with deadlines.
3. Define your goals and objectives.
4. Set priorities and choose the green practices you want to implement internally.
5. Write a green mission statement.
6. Identify ways you can help your customers go green.
7. Communicate your plans to stakeholders via meetings, e-mails, newsletters, and/or on-site signage.
Jennifer Kaplan (photo left)
We often hear from skeptics that going green costs money. Your book points out that being environmentally friendly can boost profits. In what ways can deciding to be more green and friendly to the environment save a company money or boost profits?
Jennifer Kaplan: It is no surprise that most leading companies across a variety of industries—from Wal-Mart and Google, to BP, Dupont, and General Electric—have major green initiatives in place. What do the world’s largest corporations know? Thety know that wasted resources increase the cost of doing business. They know that by being proactive in your efforts to go green you can improve your company's financial performance by reducing waste and streamlining costs.
What different options are available to a small business when seeking to make the choice to go green?
Jennifer Kaplan: One option available to small business owners is to start small. Choose a few—let’s say ten—internal business practices to green. Small business owners need to know that no matter how insignificant their efforts may seem, the law of large numbers applies: If every small business in America switched to high efficiency light bulbs or carpooled to business meetings or turned off computers and monitors every night, the impact would be huge. So, if he chooses ten green practices to put into action, implement, and communicate, he will be doing a lot more than most of the competition. Of course, for even greater impact, choose fifteen or twenty!
Ultimately, there are a wide variety of green practices that involve varying investments of time and money. Not every conservation area will fit every budget or be relevant to every business. For example, most water conservation practices won’t be relevant to retailers. And sole practitioners don’t need to think about green human resources practices. Each business person can determine which areas of their business are likely candidates for greening. There are literally thousands of options.
Are there ways that the business staff can help with becoming more environmentally conscious?
Jennifer Kaplan: There’s a great quote in my book from Adine Mees, president and CEO of Canadian Business for Social Responsibility: “CSR minus HR equals PR; If employees are not engaged, Corporate Social Responsibility becomes an exercise in public relations.” The reality is that your employees are largely responsible for implementing your green practices and, therefore, getting employees involved is crucial to the success of many green initiatives. It can be as simple as inviting them to be on the “green team” or letting them know what’s going on. For example, one study found that when companies shared utility bills with staff, the employees began to adopt a more proactive attitude toward energy conservation.
How can marketing be designed with more environmental ideas in mind?
Jennifer Kaplan: The world of marketing involves not only advertising and public relations agencies but also advertisers, publishers, media outlets, production companies, printers, and paper companies. All players in the marketing process can become more sustainable by adopting eco-friendly practices such as using renewable or recycled materials, employing clean production technologies, eliminating waste, and building in recycling and end-of-life programs.
Most often, however, successful marketing boils down to customer acquisition. And since customer acquisition is a numbers game—only 4% of people respond to a catalog, only 3% of people respond to a direct mail piece, only 0.5% of people respond to a newspaper ad, and so forth—marketers significantly overproduce materials in order to reach the right number of consumers. That leads to unwanted messages and materials—also known as waste. So, improving response rates and utilizing digital media are key green marketing practices.
How can your book assist a small business owner in making the change to a more green business?
Jennifer Kaplan: There’s a revolution going on in the American marketplace. Businesses of all sizes are changing the way their businesses operate by incorporating green practices, products, and objectives into their business models. Greening Your Small Business is designed to guide business owners through the green planning process, and provide them with the practical information and resources needed to go green as well as offer insights from small businesses that have already begun to green their operations.
Whether a business owner wants to go green because volatile energy costs are affecting her bottom line. Or because he thinks customers want him to—or even expect him to. Maybe she wants to stay competitive or become more competitive. Or he is just committed to doing whatever he can to reduce global warming and protect the environment. Whatever the reason, like millions of small business owners across America, they’re asking themselves whether there is an economic advantage to going green. This book will help them find the answer.
What is next for Jennifer Kaplan?
Jennifer Kaplan: Hmmmm…not really sure. Stay tuned I guess.
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My book review of Greening Your Small Business: How to Improve Your Bottom Line, Grow Your Brand, Satisfy Your Customers - and Save the Planet by Jennifer Kaplan.
Jennifer Kaplan (photo left) is a partner in Greenhance LLC, Jennifer brings 20 years of corporate marketing experience and a firsthand knowledge of consumer research to help small business owners grow greener. Jennifer is Adjunct Faculty in Marketing at Marymount University and has worked with companies such as Discovery Channel, Lifetime Television, Conde Nast Publications and Simon & Schuster Publishing. She has an AB from Barnard College and MBA from the New York University Stern School of Business.
